Six Degrees of Separation - July 2017

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly meme that was started by Annabel Smith and Emma Chapman. It is currently hosted by Kate on her booksaremyfavouriteandbest blog, and normally runs on the first Saturday of the month. The main idea of this meme is to form a chain of books by linking something they have in common, kind of like forming a word ladder with common letters, and everyone begins their chains with the same book. Other than that, there are no set rules. You get to make your own!

This month, we are starting with Picnic At Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay. It probably won’t surprise you that this is another one that I haven’t read. What I know about it comes from the synopsis at Goodreads; it takes place in Australia so I’ll use that as my jumping-off point.

The image of a harsh and rocky Australian shore makes me think of The Light Between Oceans by M.L Stedman. The words in the book evoked beautiful images but it was not a pretty story. I differed from most everyone who has read the book in that I didn’t enjoy it. I read it for book club!

Another book that I read for book club, but really didn’t enjoy, also has the word ‘ocean’ in its title — The Ocean At The End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. There was a supernatural element to the story that just didn’t work for me!

Miss Peregrine’s House for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs also had a supernatural element to it, and again, it just didn’t work for me. This was another book club selection, so I finished it. It is the first in a series that I won’t be continuing on in..

Another series in which one book was enough is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collinsm — another book club selection! By itself, I didn’t really love the book but I liked it well enough. But I wasn’t ready to repeat the experience. One round of Hunger Games was enough, thank you very much!

Divergent by Veronica Roth is also the first in a series, and in many ways reminds me of The Hunger Games. We also read this one for book club, but this time it is a series that I actually devoured. The last book was a bit of a disappointment, but I digress.

One thing I loved about that book was the setting — Chicago, a city I am pretty familiar with. The story takes place in future day Chicago. Another book that is set in Chicago, but this time in the past, is The Devil in the White City by Eric Larson by Eric Larson. This tells the story of America’s first ‘serial killer’ at the time of the Chicago World’s Fair in the 1890s

And there’s my chain; from Picnic At Hanging Rock to The Devil in the White City in six moves, and except for the first one, I have read them all with my book club! Visit the current Six Degrees post on Kate’s blog to link up your chain and see what others have done with Picnic At Hanging Rock. Next month we are starting with Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Be sure to come back to see what I do with it!