What’s the most unique or weird way you’ve seen a book start off?

I’ve started translating a book I like as a hobby thing (since I’m not much good at translation but I want my friends to read it), and the way it starts off is rather unique.

Another book I like also starts off in the same way, but I have no idea how it does. (It’s effective in context but doesn’t seem like the first thing you would think of?) Neither of them are particularly sexual (although they do deal with some sexual themes in a way that I don’t think is meant to be titillating) or even unorthodox (they’re hopeful + tend to play into traditional social ideals despite the ways they subvert them), but it gives a certain impression if I ever mention them

They both start off with scenes of unexpected male menstruation in which they can’t find any period products + get dysphoric over it. One is a high school boy who switched bodies with a girl of the same age when they both fell into a swimming pool, and the other is a middle-aged trans man who was busy with work and had to severely delay his shot appointment

Also I love talking about either book (altho it’s been a while since reading them) so feel free to ask more about them if you’re curious about their plots. I think they’re in an interesting intersection of sort of, simultaneous individualism and collectivism + their social critiques/insights were engaging. I don’t necessarily agree entirely with all of their messaging, but I loved reading them just because I hadn’t seen anything like it before even in my native language (altho that could also be b/c I hadn’t read very many good English books at the time). They both use themes that are so often made cliché, light, and artificial as opportunities for raw yet uplifting portrayals of humanity.

Marking NSFW in advance because I know a lot of books that start off in weird ways are erotica + if I get asked about the sexual themes it would become NSFW in the “it’s not hot but there are definitely words on screen about sex” way

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