**I have to do a shout to Mikaela at MikaelaReads first. This is my first Six Degrees post and I wouldn’t have a first post had I not seen this meme on Mikaela’s blog in April. I enjoyed the meme so much I decided to do it too. **
HOW IT WORKS:
Six Degrees of Separation is a meme that began with Annabel Smith and Emma Chapman and has been hosted by Kate over at Books Are My Favourite and Best since 2016. Each month a new book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. Links can be formed in multiple ways. For instance, books can be linked through author, themes, settings, or even publishing year. Links can also be more personal such as books you reread often or books that remind you of a time in your life. The possibilities are limitless!
Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the Linky section (or comments) of each month’s post. If you don’t have a blog, you can share your chain in the comments section. You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees
STARTING BOOK: Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Clearly

Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary is the first in a series of middle grade books about sisters. Unfortunately, I don’t recall ever reading this particular book or series by Cleary, but her name is a part of my childhood because she wrote Dear Mr. Henshaw.
Dear Mr. Henshaw, on the other hand, was a book I had to read for class. It’s about a boy who writes to his favorite author Boyd Henshaw every school year. They become friends through these letters, and Mr. Henshaw is a source of encouragement. Guess who also wrote to one of her favorite authors?
Me! I wrote a letter to Patricia C. Wrede, author of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, when I was in elementary school and she wrote me back! I don’t know where the letter is anymore, and I can’t remember the content of the letter, except that it was encouraging. I probably told her something about wanting to write when I grew up. I treasured it so much and even shared it with my teacher. The Enchanted Forest Chronicles is a set of four books. The first three books are about Cimorene, a girl who decides to go live with a dragon, and in the last book her son is the main protagonist. Dealing With Dragons is the one I’ll use to make the connection because this is the earliest book I remember reading (and loving) with dragons; thus, igniting my love for fantasy novels, kickass protagonists, and dragons. Now, speaking of dragons…
There’s this Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. While I never read the book by Stieg Larsson, I watched the movies and was blown away by the awesomeness of Lisbeth Salander. She’s a punk prodigy and is enlisted by journalist Mikael Blomkvist to help figure out what happened to a woman who disappeared over 40 years ago. Salander has the dragon tattoo and is a kickass protagonist. Who else is a kickass protagonist that is very good at what she does and is enlisted for help?
Zafira bint Iskander of We Hunt the Flame is known as the Hunter and is gifted with her bow and arrow. She disguises herself as a man so that she can bring back food for her village. She enters a forest and is always able to return whom while others are unable to make it back alive, or if they do, they’re not the same when they return, which is why she is sought out to go on a journey to bring magic back Arawiya. It was published in 2019, but I didn’t get a chance to read it until recently. This was one of my favorite reads at the beginning of 2021.
Also published in 2019 is Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes. Holmes’s debut book is about a woman whose husband died in a car accident. A year after his death, she rarely leaves her home so people think she’s still devastated over his loss. Her best friend’s childhood best friend Dean needs a place to stay while he tries to figure out why he can’t throw a baseball straight anymore. He moves into an apartment at the back of Evvie’s house and they become friends. This was one of the few books that set me on the path toward not only overcoming a long reading drought but consuming romance novels one after the other.
One of my latest reads with just the right amount of romance in it is Tricia Levenseller’s YA fantasy Blade of Secrets. Two sisters are on the run with a mercenary and a scholar to hide a weapon commissioned by a warlord who wants to reunite 6 countries under a single rule, the warlord’s rule. I hadn’t expected the romance and was fueled by the intriguing plot because the weapon was created by one of the sisters, Ziva, a blacksmith who imbues her weapons with magic. I’ll be posting a review for it soon (spoiler alert: I liked it…a lot.)

ENDING BOOK: Blade of Secrets by Tricia Levenseller
That was an unexpected ride through books I loved when I was young and books I now enjoy as an adult (more like a big kid). Also, I didn’t expect to end back up at a book about sisters.
35 responses to “Six Degrees of Separation: May 2021”
Welcome to Six Degrees! It is a such a fun meme to do each month. You did a great job on your first time!
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Thank you! I had fun doing it! I am already looking forward to the next month.
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So glad you decided to join this meme! Makes you think, right? I think it is lovely that you wrote a favorite author when you were a kid. Today, they’d just TicTok them, if they read at all!
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Thanks! I had fun with the meme. And yes, it did make me think! I hadn’t thought about Dear Mr. Henshaw in forever! 🤣
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See you next month, starting with The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld? I hope so! I’ve already got most of mine written!
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I too went for childhood favourites, but I guess we’re from different generations, as they’re not one bit the same, so I enjoyed seeing your very different take on the theme.
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Yay for childhood favorites! I was just looking at your chain too and also enjoyed the different takes.
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This is so exciting! Welcome to 6 Degrees! It’s one of my favourite posts every month
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Thanks! I think it’s likely going to become one of my favorites too. I’m already excited for the next one. I liked your links this month too. I haven’t read the book, but I did like the movie adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs too.
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This is such a fun meme, and I love your choices! 🙂
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Thanks! I had a lot of fun with this.
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I so enjoy this challenge as well. Welcome. Great chain of books. I loved Dear Mr. Henshaw as well as Evie Drake. The fantasy ones look good – will check them out for sure.
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Would love to hear what you think if you get a chance to check them out.
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Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – agreed totally with your thoughts on the movies! They were dark and gruesome and gory, but I was/ am such a Salander supporter. And Wrede’s work is so different, but one of the perfect readlike recs for Ramona series. 🙂
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Yes! Lisbeth Salander is awesome! I really liked how Noomi Rapace portrayed her.
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I don’t know any of your books either- no, scrub that, I had heard of Dear Mr Henshaw, and even recognise this cover. I would have enjoyed that book if I’d read it I reckon. You have done a great first Six Degrees. I’m glad you’ve joined this mine’s family.
And, I do like the look of your blog – it’s bright, pretty and inviting.
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Silly me, of course, I also know the Dragon Tattoo book. I just haven’t read it either!
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🤣🤣🤣
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Thanks for the kind words. I’m glad I joined too! It’s been so interesting seeing eveyone’s chains!
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It’s fun, isn’t it. You can also sometimes pick people’s reading enthusiasms – fantasy, historical fiction, non-fiction, etc.
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Yes! I noticed how my chain ended with romance and fantasy even though it hadn’t started that way.
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Thanks for visiting my TTT earlier and for the thoughts about the different covers.
I haven’t read any of your books (though my boys read “Dealing with Dragons” and loved it and my husband read “The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo”, so the books are not totally unknown to me) but I loved your thoughts behind the chain and how you took us from one book to the next. Well done.
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Thanks! This is likely going to become a favorite meme.
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Same for me. I’ve started in February but I’m sure I’ll follow it for a long, long time.
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Welcome to Six Degrees, it is a fun meme, isn’t it? I nearly always join in, even when I haven’t read the starting book. It’s fascinating to see how our minds all work so differently.
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Thanks for the welcome! It is very fun. I know it will become a favorite meme already.
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As everyone else has said, welcome to the challenge – I haven’t been participating for very long either, but it is really addictive – even when I’m busy, I try to fit this in.
Your links were most unusual; I haven’t read any of them, though my mother has recommended the Girl with the Dragon Tatoo series to me many times, she loves it. And I love the story about writing to an author; I once wrote to Bill Bryson, and he very kindly replied – so exciting, isn’t it? This also reminded me of Jane Gardam’s A Long Way From Verona, in which an author visits the narrator’s school – as he leaves she thrusts some of her stories into his hands, and he later writes to her, saying ‘Jessica Vye, you are a writer beyond all possible doubt!’ I’d like to read Dear Mr Henshaw – I’m going to look it up right now.
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Thanks for the welcome! Links can sure stir up forgotten memories! 😀 Authors who reply are awesome! I think it’s so nice that they take the time to respond back to us, especially knowing how busy they probably are. I hope you get a chance to read Dear Mr. Henshaw!
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Hi there! Welcome to Six Degrees! Easily one of the most fun memes on the Blogosphere!
First of all, your blog is GORGEOUS!!!! I hope you are going to enjoy it and that it will provide hours of fun for you.
Your Six Degrees was a fun chain and it makes perfect sense where you ended up.
Hope to see you next month again!
Elza Reads
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Thank you for the kind words and the warm welcome! I’m excited for next month already!
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It was so fun to read!!! Loved this 💕
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Thanks! This is one of the most fun memes I’ve participated in.
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[…] was nominated by itsKooReviews! I’ve followed their blog for a little while now and you should definitely check it out too, […]
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