Weekly Mews: Six Degrees of Separation (From Kairos to Charlotte's Webb) & My July TBR List Poll (Please Vote!)

I am linking up to the Sunday Post hosted by Kim of Caffeinated Book Reviewer and The Sunday Salon (TSS) hosted by Deb Nance of Readerbuzz  where participants recap our week, talk about what we are reading, share any new books that have come our way, and whatever else we want to talk about. I am also linking It's Monday! What Are you Reading? hosted by Kathryn of Book Date where readers talk about what they have been, are and will be reading.

I am linking up Stacking the Shelves hosted by Marlene of Reading Reality a meme in which participants share what new books came their way recently.  

I am grateful for a working air conditioner right about now. When I left the office yesterday afternoon for my drive home, it was 107F outside. Summer weather is here, which also means it's fire season and they are popping up everywhere, unfortunately. My family and I had a quiet Independence Day. We ran errands and enjoyed spending the day together. I missed the fireworks because I had to get to bed to be up early for work the next morning. 

Summer band and color guard day camp for Mouse wrapped up this past week, ending with a concert on Wednesday that was open to family and friends. The kids were wonderful and had fun. The air conditioning was out in the woodwinds practice room for most of the camp, unfortunately, but Mouse still enjoyed herself. Luckily they weren't in that room the entire time!

I surprised Mouse this week with a flower delivery

What have you been up to?

This week I was able to finish three books. I listened to J.D. Robb's Vengeance in Death (#6), narrated by Susan Eriksen. Spending time with Roarke and Eve is always entertaining, and I got to learn a little more about Roarke's past in this installment. I finished reading the final book in the Shades of Magic Trilogy, A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab. It was quite an intense read. I continue to be enamored by the world Schwab has created in this series and look forward to reading The Fragile Threads of Power. In the mood for something a bit less tense this week, I also read Pulp by Robin Talley, a dual time line novel, which pulled at my heartstrings in more ways than one. It held a tension of a different sort than Schwab's book, but definitely had it's tense moments. 

I only made a little more progress in Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver this week and am about half way through at the moment. I really like the book, but I have a hardcover copy (and it's heavy) and so it tends to stay by my bedside for nighttime reading, which I didn't do much of the last few nights. I just started Katherine Reay's The Berlin Letters, which I have heard good things about. I am in the mood for a little Cold War espionage!

What are you reading right now?

My TBR List is hosted by Michelle at Because Reading. The 1st Saturday of every month, I will list 3 books from my TBR pile I am considering reading and let you vote for my next read during that month. My review will follow (unfortunately, not likely in the same month, but eventually--that's all I can promise).  

Please help me select my next read! I caught my husband looking askance at my overflowing bookshelves, which I am taking as a sign I need to go through my shelves again soon to make space for the newer books (although, he did tell me Thursday that I couldn't leave the bookstore without picking out a book, so he is partly to blame here). In the meantime, I selected three books from my TBR collection for this week's poll to help whittle it down some. Which one do you think I should read next? 

The Housekeepers by Alex Hay

The night of London's grandest ball, a bold group of women downstairs launch a daring revenge heist against Mayfair society in this dazzling historical novel about power, gender, and class.

Mrs. King is no ordinary housekeeper. Born into a world of con artists and thieves, she’s made herself respectable, running the grandest home in Mayfair. The place is packed with treasures, a glittering symbol of wealth and power, but dark secrets lurk in the shadows.

When Mrs. King is suddenly dismissed from her position, she recruits an eclectic group of women to join her in revenge: A black market queen out to settle her scores. An actress desperate for a magnificent part. A seamstress dreaming of a better life. And Mrs. King’s predecessor, with her own desire for vengeance.

Their plan? On the night of the house’s highly anticipated costume ball—set to be the most illustrious of the year—they will rob it of its every possession, right under the noses of the distinguished guests and their elusive heiress host. But there’s one thing Mrs. King wants even more than money: the truth. And she’ll run any risk to get it…

After all, one should never underestimate the women downstairs. [Goodreads Summary]

Assistant to the Villain (Assistant to the Villain #1) by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

Once Upon a Time meets The Office in Hannah Maehrer’s laugh-out-loud viral TikTok series turned novel, about the sunshine assistant to an Evil Villain…and their unexpected romance.

ASSISTANT WANTED: Notorious, high-ranking villain seeks loyal, levelheaded assistant for unspecified office duties, supporting staff for random mayhem, terror, and other Dark Things In General. Discretion a must. Excellent benefits.

With ailing family to support, Evie Sage's employment status isn't just important, it's vital. So when a mishap with Rennedawn’s most infamous Villain results in a job offer—naturally, she says yes. No job is perfect, of course, but even less so when you develop a teeny crush on your terrifying, temperamental, and undeniably hot boss. Don’t find evil so attractive, Evie.

But just when she’s getting used to severed heads suspended from the ceiling and the odd squish of an errant eyeball beneath her heel, Evie suspects this dungeon has a huge rat…and not just the literal kind. Because something rotten is growing in the kingdom of Rennedawn, and someone wants to take the Villain—and his entire nefarious empire—out.

Now Evie must not only resist drooling over her boss but also figure out exactly who is sabotaging his work…and ensure he makes them pay.

After all, a good job is hard to find. [Goodreads Summary]

Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis

A sharp-witted, high fantasy farce featuring killer moat squid, toxic masculinity, evil wizards and a garlic festival - all at once. Perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, K. J. Parker and Travis Baldree.

It’s bad enough waking up in a half-destroyed evil wizard’s workshop with no eyebrows, no memories, and no idea how long you have before the Dread Lord Whomever shows up to murder you horribly and then turn your skull into a goblet or something.

It’s a lot worse when you realize that Dread Lord Whomever is… you.

Gav isn’t really sure how he ended up with a castle full of goblins, or why he has a princess locked in a cell. All he can do is play along with his own evil plan in hopes of getting his memories back before he gets himself killed.

But as he realizes that nothing – from the incredibly tasteless cloak adorned with flames to the aforementioned princess – is quite what it seems, Gav must face up to all the things the Dread Lord Gavrax has done. And he’ll have to answer the hardest question of all – who does he want to be?

A high fantasy farce featuring killer moat squid, toxic masculinity, an evil wizard convocation, and a garlic festival. All at once. Dread Lord Gavrax has had better weeks. [Goodreads Summary]

Thank you for voting!

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best: "The meme was inspired by Hungarian writer and poet Frigyes Karinthy. In his 1929 short story, Chains, Karinthy coined the phrase 'six degrees of separation'. The phrase was popularised by a 1990 play written by John Guare, which was later made into a film starring Stockard Channing." Each month, participants start with a designated book, creating a chain of books, each connected to the one before. Seeing where we end up is half the fun! 

This month's Six Degrees of Separation starting point is the International Booker Prize winner Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, which is not one I have read. It is described as "a dramatic love story that unfolds as the GDR implodes." The reunification of East and West Berlin lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall, a notable time in the world's history. This immediately brought to mind one of my current reads, Katherine Reay's The Berlin Letters, a dual time line novel set in Germany as the Berlin Wall went up overnight in 1961 and then just before its fall in 1989.

I could not help but think of one of my favorite books set during the Cold War then: Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo, featuring a young Chinese American girl who falls in love with a female classmate at a time when same sex love was viewed as immoral. There is one scene in Lo's book, where the main character, Lily, finds a lesbian pulp novel in a drugstore. Across the country, a year later, Janet finds a lesbian pulp novel while shopping too; this time in Robin Talley's young adult novel, Pulp. Pulp is a dual time line novel with lesbian pulp fiction at its center, set in 1955, as a young high school graduate discovers who she is and wants to be, and in 2017 as a high school senior becomes immersed in those old novels and their history, desperately wanting to know more about the author behind her favorite one as she navigates through her own life and struggles. 

Well, I mean, it isn't as though I'd never enjoyed a book before--I loved Jane Eyre--but your book, well . . . it felt as though you'd written it just for me. [excerpt from Pulp by Robin Talley] 

Unfortunately, attempts to ban books have increased again in recent years, and most of the targeted books feature LGBTQIA+ characters or people of color, groups of people who are already sorely underrepresented. Representation in literature matters and it is explained so eloquently and from the heart by several authors in essays published in Well-Read Black Girl, edited by Glory Edim. I was familiar with several of the contributors, including Jesmyn Ward, Jacqueline Woodson, N.K. Jemisin, Tayari Jones, Nicole Dennis-Benn, and Rebecca Walker among others. 

Reading for me was a vehicle for self-exploration when real life wasn't safe. But without seeing that path in the power of story, I didn't know that it was one that existed for me. [excerpt from "The Need for Kisses" in Well-Read Black Girl by Dhonielle Clayton]

The above quote is from one of the essays included in Well-Read Black Girl by author Dhonielle Clayton. My daughter has a copy of Dhonielle Clayton's The Marvellers (Conjureverse #1), which I have been wanting to read for some time now. There's something about magical schools, that I cannot resist. Hopefully I can talk my daughter into letting me borrow her copy soon! 

In thinking about the direction to go after The Marvellers, I thought of my own favorite middle grade novels, and then I thought of the West African protector-spider from The Marvellers, which lead me to Charlotte's Webb by E.B. White, which is where my chain comes to an end. 

By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that. [excerpt from Charlotte's Webb]

I always spend a lot of time thinking about what direction to take my chains, and often come up with various options, settling on one. For the fun of it, I thought I would share a couple of the others I came up with starting with Kairos.

Have you read any of these books? What books would you put in your chain? 

New to my shelves (recent book purchases):

Heartstopper, Vol. 1 & 2 by Alice Oseman

City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy #1) by S.A. Chakraborty

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

Talismans, Teacups & Trysts by K. Starling (signed copy)

Have you read any of these books? If so, what did you think? 

I hope you have a great week! Let me know what you have been reading!

---

© 2024, Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.

Weekly Mews: Cookie Time & Six Degrees of Separation (From No One is Talking About This to Becoming)

I am linking up to the Sunday Post hosted by Kim of Caffeinated Book Reviewer and The Sunday Salon (TSS) hosted by Deb Nance of Readerbuzz  where participants recap our week, talk about what we are reading, share any new books that have come our way, and whatever else we want to talk about. I am also linking It's Monday! What Are you Reading? hosted by Kathryn of Book Date where readers talk about what they have been, are and will be reading.

I am linking up to Stacking the Shelves hosted by Team Tynga's Reviews and Marlene of Reading Reality a meme in which participants share what new books came their way recently. 

Can you believe it is the last weekend of January? It seemed to both drag and fly by at varying points of the month. The wind went away the beginning of the week and came back full force toward the end of the week, although all is calm out there this morning. The temperatures are starting to get warmer. I am very ready for spring.

As I write this, I am shaking off the last of the sleepy dust and Mouse is getting ready for a full day of dance. Anjin is tucked in bed getting some last minute zzz's before his day starts.  Mouse had a virtual Girl Scout meeting this past week followed by a parent meeting to talk about the kick off of cookie season--which means soon my house will be full of boxes of cookies to sell. 

I realize it is not February yet, but I am jumping in a weekend early to take part in February's Six Degrees of Separation since next weekend I will be posting my January wrap up and February TBR poll where you help me decide what I will read next. 

February's starting point is No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood, a novel I know very little about (I think it focuses on the impact of social media on a woman's life and how that frames loss and grief suffered in her offline life), and so I am focusing on the title itself. 

It's actually a good jumping off point for a variety of topics, but the book that first came to my mind was Me & Emma by Elizabeth Flock. I don't really want to go into too much about this book only to say it deals with the issues of child abuse. One of those dirty family secrets hardly anyone wants to talk about or, in some cases, acknowledge. 

I go from there to Laura Lippman's mystery novel, Hush Hush, which I chose solely because of the title and not the subject matter. Because, going back to Me & Emma, the victims are often told to keep quiet about what is happening and not talk about. 

Secrets long kept have a way of coming out--and often need to. Which brings to mind Shout by Laurie Anderson Halse, a memoir in verse I read the end of last year. A survivor of sexual assault, the author learned to speak up for herself and wanted to share her story so others will know they are not alone and give them hope. 

I am currently reading The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré about a young Nigerian woman, girl really, who faces what many would see as insurmountable obstacles, including child marriage and cruelty and abuse, and yet she continues to work toward making her dreams come true. 

Adunni in The Girl with a Louding Voice longs for an education and to become a teacher, which brings me to the next book in the chain, Tara Westover's Educated. Tara mostly had to educate herself, raised by survivalist parents who feared the government and were preparing for the end of the world. She would eventually go onto college and earn her doctorate. 

Going back to choosing a book more so because of its title, Michelle Obama's Becoming popped up in my mind. Although, some of the themes from this one do carry over from one book to the other. Learning, growing, becoming. Whether facing trauma, hardships, grief, or discrimination, the fictional and real life girls/women in these books come into their own, each through their own journeys, becoming who they are today.

And there you have it: from No One is Talking About This to Becoming. Where would your chain go?

**Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best in the host chooses a book and participants take it from there: creating a chain of books, each connected to the one before. Seeing where we end up is half the fun!**

This Week In Reading Mews

New to the Shelves:

My husband surprised me with a couple of manga books from my wish list this week:

I Want to Eat Your Pancreas by Yoru Sumino, illustrated by Izumi Kirihara

Spy x Family, Vol. 1 by by Tatsuya Endo, translated by Casey Loe

Currently Reading: 

• The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré 
• Hooky by Míriam Bonastre Tur
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Blog Posts:

• Weekly Mews: High Winds, Good Books, and More Hot Cocoa
• Top Ten Tuesday: New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2021
• Bookish Mewsings: Witches Get Stitches / The Ex Hex / Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop
• Where Is Your Bookmark: My Current Read & Just in Time for Cinderella

Tell me what you have been up to! What are you reading, listening to and watching? What new books did you add to your bookshelf? How was your week?

---

© 2022, Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.

Six Degrees of Separation: The Road to After the Flood

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best in which our lovely host chooses a book and participants take it from there: creating a chain of books, each connected to the one before. Seeing where we end up is half the fun! 

It is rare I have actually read the book that starts the chain, and this is one of the cases in which I have. The Road by Cormac McCarthy made quite an impression on me when I read it. In my 2013 review I wrote: "the writing is brilliant, the story stark and depressing and yet full of love with a (very) dim spark of hope." The novel is about a young boy and his father as they travel toward the coast in an inhospitable, post-apocalyptic world.

Thinking of that father and son pair existing in such dire circumstances, trying to survive, instantly brought to mind Melanie and Justineau from The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey, a dystopian novel in which  the last of the healthy survivors live in fear of a infectious fungal virus that causes people to lose their mental abilities and feed on the healthy. While the two characters are not blood related, they have a relationship much like that of a daughter and mother. Melanie is a part of a scientific experiment, and when the head doctor decides it is time for her to be dissected, her teacher, Justineau steps in and the two end up on the run, trying to make their way to what they hope will be a protected establishment.

Concern of a contagion and being on the run for their lives, immediately made me think of The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, in which the last boy in a town of men uncovers a forbidden secret and must go on the run. At the beginning of the novel, the reader learns it is believed that a "germ" released by the local inhabitants of the planet killed all of the women and many of the men, making it impossible for the thoughts of the men to remain hidden from one another. It's another novel set in a rather dire world, this one another planet, and, like the previous book, the characters are on a journey for their lives.

A crazy preacher and a contagion lead me straight to The Stand by Stephen King next (there's a crazy preacher in Ness's book and a character worshiped as the "messiah" in King's), which features a weaponized influenza epidemic accidentally released onto the population, taking most people out.  Anarchy ensues, while people try to survive, some attempting to build safe communities to live in.

In writing The Stand, Stephen King wanted to create his own epic story in the spirit of Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. King's Randall Flagg a version of the Dark Lord; Las Vegas was cast to represent Mordor.

An unlikely band of characters comes together to help Frodo on his mission in The Lord of the Rings. Similarly, Yumeko, the heroine in Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa picks up her own unlikely traveling companions as she journeys to a far off temple to deliver a part of an ancient scroll, chased by evil forces. Both Frodo and Yumeko face difficult journeys, each with their own burden to bear.

Yumeko guards her part of the scroll well, including keeping the very fact she has it at all from her companions, especially the dangerous and mysterious samurai who is after the scroll himself. Myra is not completely honest with her companions either when they take her and her daughter, Pearl, onto their boat in After the Flood by Kassandra Montag. She does what she can to gain the crew's trust and convince them to go where she needs them to go in the search for her older daughter, even if it means lying to them.

After the Flood is a post-apocalyptic novel set  a century or so from now; floodwaters have overtaken much of the land and coastal cities and even much of the inlands are covered in water. Myra and Pearl have been on their own for many years, living on the water and stopping on land only when they need food or supplies. It is a bleak and near hopeless novel about a mother and her child that brought to mind McCarthy's The Road as I read it. How fitting then that my chain brings me right back to the beginning. Each novel in the chain takes the characters on a quest of some sort, whether it be in search of something or to deliver something or just with the hope of surviving.

All of these are excellent books I highly recommend if you have not yet read them! 

Next month we’ll begin with Sally Rooney’s best seller (and now a TV series), Normal People.

---

© 2020, Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.

Six Degrees of Separation: Stasiland to Sparrow Hill Road

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best in which our lovely host chooses a book and participants take it from there: creating a chain of books, each connected to the one before. Seeing where we end up is half the fun! 

This month's Six Degrees of Separation begins with Ann Funder's Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall. I am not sure how I missed hearing about Stasiland until now. It definitely sounds like a book I would gravitate towards. I am old enough to remember the time before the Wall and the time after. I still remember when the Wall fell, not quite believing what I was seeing on my television screen and yet knowing what a momentous moment it was. I had heard enough stories about what life was like for those stuck on the East side of the Wall, how brutal the secret police (the Stasi) were.

Forty Autumns: A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall by Nina Willner is not a book I have read yet, but I do have a copy on my TBR shelf. Just as Funder's subjects shared their stories about life behind the Berlin Wall, so does Willner as she recounts her family history of five women separated for more than forty years because of the Berlin Wall, and their eventual reunion when the Wall fell.

The author of Forty Autumns was an American Army Intelligence Officer whose missions often took her behind the Berlin Wall into East Germany, all the while risking her life. That brought to mind the fictional Maggie Hope, an American working for the British government during World War II in Susan Elia MacNeal's series. She is the quintessential female spy and there is very little she cannot do if she sets her mind to it.

One of the things I especially liked about MacNeal's The Prime Minister's Secret Agent (#4) was the way the author wove Post Traumatic Stress into the novel, a very real side effect for those involved in the war. Of course, it was not called that at the time. It was more often referred to as Battle Fatigue or Combat Stress Reaction. Another author who wrote about a character with Battle Fatigue is Hazel Gaynor in her novel, The Girl From the Savoy. It took Teddy a long time to heal from the scars World War I left on him. I don't imagine anyone can ever completely heal from those wounds. Perry was another character in the novel who had fought in that war and carried his own scars.

The protagonist in Gaynor's novel, Dolly Lane, is an aspiring actress who takes a job at the Savoy as a maid hoping to hobnob with the famous in order to make her break into show business. I immediately thought of Sister Carrie by Theordore Dreiser, which is about a country girl who moves to the city and becomes a famous actress.

Although Carrie's sister and brother-in-law welcomed Carrie into their Chicago home, there was no love lost between them. Carrie and her sister were like oil and water, and it quickly became clear that Carrie would not be able to stay in her sister's home. Sister relationships are a common theme in fiction novels as well as in memoirs. One of my daughter's favorite graphic memoirs comes to mind in fact. It is Sisters by Raina Telegeier, which takes place while the two sisters, their brother and their mother are on a road trip headed from San Francisco to Colorado for a family reunion. The two girls are constantly bickering and have a love/hate relationship that siblings often do.

On the subject of road trips, one of my favorite road trip book (if you can call it that) is Seanan McGuire's Sparrrow Hill Road, the first book in the author's Ghost Roads series, about a hitchhiking ghost, forever on the highway.

And that brings us to the end of of this month's Six Degrees of Separation. The chain took us from the Berlin Wall to espionage, battle fatigue to country girls following their dreams, and sisters to road trips.

Have you read any of these books? Did you make your own chain? Where did you end up? 

Next Month's Starting Book: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

---

© 2018, Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.

Six Degrees of Separation: Fleishman is in Trouble to The Maltese Falcon

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best in which our lovely host chooses a book and participants take it from there: creating a chain of books, each connected to the one before. Seeing where we end up is half the fun! 

This month's featured title is Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, a novel about a 40-something year old man who is at the top of his game. Divorced, a successful career, kids on the weekends, and women at his beck and call. But now his ex-wife has disappeared, and he is forced to take a hard look at his life.

Fleishman was able to line up a different hook-up every night through a dating app. Which made me think of Lost in Geeklandia (Geeklandia #1) by E.J. Russell, a novel about an introverted computer engineer who has created the perfect matchmaking program. An investigative reporter is determined to prove the program is a scam and save his previously damaged reputation.  This was a fun romance that reminded me of the movie How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days.

Like Daniel Shaw, the reporter in Lost in Geeklandia, Coleridge Taylor is a down on his luck reporter, kicked off his beat, and desperate to regain his reputation in Last Words (Coleridge Taylor Mystery #1) by Rich Zahradnik, which is is set in New York City, 1973. Zahradnik captures the time period so well as his character follows a lead that takes him to the streets with the homeless community to the filthy rich. This is one of my favorite mysteries series.

Last Words' Taylor lost his brother in the Vietnam War. Tatjana Soli's The Lotus Eaters is set in Vietnam during the war, also in 1975, about an American photojournalist who has fallen in love with a Vietnamese man. The Lotus Eaters is one of my all-time favorite novels: beautiful, dark, and thought provoking.

Another novel with a flower in the title is Mercedes Lackey's The Fire Rose. San Francisco in the early 1900’s is the perfect backdrop for this Beauty and the Beast re-telling. Women have their place in society but are making definite movement towards beginning their struggle for equality. Rose is a woman who has never been content in a traditional role, wanting to get a doctorate and stand on her own two feet. She wears glasses, thinks herself rather plain and is a bookworm. The perfect heroine for this book.

Perhaps then it would seem an odd jump to go from a character like Rose to one like Samuel Spade in The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, Spade being a quintessential ladies' man. The novel is also set in San Francisco, although a few years in the future. Spade is a private investigator who takes on a case to find a woman's missing sister--only nothing goes as planned. I can see why so many mystery authors have been influenced by Dashiell Hammett's writings, including this classic.

Following a chain from a troubled man who relies on a dating app to get women; a reporter determined to write an exposé on a new matchmaking app; another newsman trying to repair his tattered reputation who lost his brother in the Vietnam War; to a photojournalist who has captured so much of the Vietnam War on film and struggles with where she fits in. And from there we go to San Francisco where a woman determines she must uncover the real reason behind her employer's secrecy and secluded lifestyle leading us then to a private investigator whose search for his client's sister turns into a search for a jewel-encrusted bird. From Fleishman is in Trouble to The Maltese Falcon.

Did you participate in this month's Six Degrees of Separation?

March's chain will begin with Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar. 

I hope you will join in and give it a try!

---

© 2020, Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.

Six Degrees of Separation: Daisy Jones & the Six to On the Come Up

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best in which our lovely host chooses a book and participants take it from there: creating a chain of books, each connected to the one before. Seeing where we end up is half the fun! 

I have missed participating in Six Degrees of Separation and am hoping to take part more consistently this year. Sometimes the titles come easily to me, and other times I know what direction I want to go and have to do a little research. While I try to use books I have read, that isn’t always the case. If it is a book I haven’t read, I choose books that are at least on my wish list or TBR mountain.

This month’s featured book is Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, which I hadn't heard of until recently when it began popping up on so many favorite books lists for 2019. Set in the 1960’s and 1970’s, this novel tells the story of Daisy and Billy and their rise to fame in a rock band.

However loosely, I immediately thought of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity about Rob who cannot keep a girlfriend for long and who escapes into pop music, works in a record store, and is still stuck on his last ex, Laura. The closest I have come to reading Nick Hornby is reading a couple of his essays, but I have long wanted to read this particular book. I even have a copy on my TBR shelf! From what I have read about Rob, he sounds like someone many of us can relate to, even if not his exact circumstances. At the very least, I can appreciate his love for music.

Record shops can make for great settings, especially for meeting possible love interests. It worked out that way for Natasha and Daniel in The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon. Daniel is an all-around good guy. He does his best to live up to his parents high expectations, but at heart, this Korean-American boy is a poet, something his parents do not understand. Natasha, on the other hand, is all about science and facts. Her family is in the United States illegally and facing deportation to Jamaica if she cannot find an attorney to help them. The two of them seem an unlikely match, especially under the circumstances, but sometimes opposites do attract. I adored this novel and Natasha and Daniel.

The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez also features an immigrant family. Natasha in The Sun is Also a Star really knows no other life than her life in America, much like that of Mayor in The Book of Unknown Americans. The Riveras have come to the United States from Mexico so their daughter, Maribel, can get better care after a near-fatal accident that left her with a brain injury. Maribel and Mayor, her neighbor form a friendship that evolves into something more over the course of the novel. The author gives the reader a glimpse into the struggles immigrant families have in terms of adapting to a new culture, finding a place in society, and the prejudices and obstacles they may face as a result. It is an emotional read, and one I highly recommend.

It may seem quite the leap to go from The Book of Unknown Americans to RaeAnne Thayne’s Coming Home For Christmas, but both share protagonists who have suffered brain injuries. I read the latter just this past fall. Elizabeth is in a terrible car crash that leaves her with memory loss and other health issues. She has been separated from her family for seven years, them not knowing whether she is alive or dead and her afraid to reach out to them. Now that her husband has found her, she and he have a lot of healing to do. Whether that means they renew their relationship or move on from there is just one of the decisions they face. RaeAnne Thayne is one of my favorite romance authors, and this one did not disappoint.

A car accident irrevocably changed Elizabeth’s life in Coming Home For Christmas, and it was a car accident that claimed the life of Mia’s family and has left her in limbo in If I Stay by Gayle Forman. Over the course of the novel, Mia reflects on her once perfect life and must decide whether she wants to continue to live or would rather die. It is a beautifully told story, that is both heartbreaking and inspiring. Music was a big part of Mia’s life and plays a large part in this young adult novel.

Which is why I am ending with On the Come Up by Angie Thomas, a novel about a sixteen year old girl who is hoping to become a famous rapper one day. Given all the obstacles Bri faces, it looks like it will be an uphill battle, but she is determined to reach the top on her own terms. I love the sound of this book and am looking forward to eventually reading it.

It seems fitting to end the chain which began with a novel about a legendary (fictional) rock band with one about an up and coming young star. Like the first and last books, all of the books in between involve characters who are facing what at times may seem like insurmountable odds.

Whew. That was a bit like putting together a puzzle. It is fun to do, and I hope you will consider participating if you haven’t before!

Have you read any of these books?

[February's featured book is Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. Come play along!]

---

© 2020, Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.