What Is The Best Book Beginnings?

This post is inspired by Alison from Alison Can Read who wrote a post called 'What Is The Ideal Book Beginning?'

I felt the post was a really good idea and that I absolutely agree that the most important part of a book for me is the beginning. If the start doesn't leave an impression it sometimes makes me feel the rest of the book won't live up to my expectations. However I've read books which have now become my favourite where the beginning didn't appeal very much to me but turned out AMAZING. But I believe that starting with a good beginning decides how I view the book and the mood of it as a whole.

Different Beginnings:

1. Slow start - This is something that really sets the pace of the whole book for me and whether or not I can finish it, this is when I feel the author is dragging on too much and I'm just sitting around waiting for the main point to come through and thinking 'so what does this all mean?'. But I believe slow starts can also be a good thing because it creates the sense of intrigue where you have a need to keep reading and find out more, it can take on a twist which completely pulls you in.
One book I felt that had a slow start but I ended up literally falling in love with was Delirium and it's actually one of my all time favourites.

2. Neutral - This is the sort of beginning for me where I can't say whether I love it or hate it, it's sort of in the terrority where the book is going at a steady pace with nothing too exciting or boring happening. I don't mind these beginnings because they some how still hold my attention just so I can find out where the story is heading, and sometimes these books end up being really awesome because the pace picks up and gets you going, so I think it's  very reader friendly.
For me the beginning of Iron King started in this way, it wasn't anything spectacular or bad, I felt it was just very imformative and nothing more but I have to say after a bit the goodness kicked in.

3. Fast - These beginnings appeal to me most of the time, the book starts straight off with action and energy, everything happenis quickly and it's causing you to turn the pages one after another. However these can sometimes be hard to get hooked to because it might turn out to be too fast that everything becomes muddled and hard to understand. This sort of beginning is good if it's done well by the author.
Chicagoland Vampires series and the Gallagher Girls series are very good at pulling the reader in straightaway.

4. Backstory and Voice - This is really important for me because this is what attracts me as a reader, if there is an interesting story behind the characters it creates this sense of suspense because you want to find out more about the character and dig deeper into their story. The voice is also something I look out for, if it interests me it'll keep me hooked, if it irritates me there may be points where I may have the need to give up but that actually doesn't happen too often.
I think If I Stay is a great example of this, the main character slowly unfolds her life through each chapter and I felt I could really connect with her.

There are many other beginnings that are also great or that I dislike but I just noted these 4 which either make it or break it for books that I read.

What are some of your ideal beginnings or which books did you feel accomplished a good start or were an epic fail!?