Six Degrees Of Separation (Wild; Cheryl Strayed)

Exactly 28 days from the last of these posts, the first Saturday of March is once again on the 7th! As always, this awesome meme is hosted by Annabel Smith and Emma Chapman. Enjoy this month's connections!

'Wild' by Cheryl Strayed is this month's chosen book. Although I've heard of it, I've never actually read it, nor do I really intend to. It doesn't really sound like my cup of tea! I'll be honest, I struggled a little with choosing my six books in relation to this. But here they are!

My first connection from 'Wild' is to Terri Bruce's 'Hereafter'. I have already mentioned it's sequel, 'Thereafter', in another of these lists. I chose this book because both novels involve a long journey into the unknown. While 'Wild' is about a young woman hiking through the wilderness, 'Hereafter' is about a young woman facing the afterlife and trying to figure out what she's supposed to be doing next. Both women are very faulted characters too, who have made many mistakes and regret their past actions considerably.

Seeing as 'Hereafter' deals with the afterlife, I thought I would look at some ghost stories next. 'The Mistletoe Bride & Other Haunting Tales' is a collection by renowned author Kate Mosse and is clearly a good choice for the ghostly. In some ways Mosse doesn't just try to give a good scare, but also reflect on what might happen beyond the grave which is a clear link to Bruce's intentions in her novel.

I chose 'The Moment Collector' by Jodi Lynn Anderson next because there is a ghost in it, whose POV we hear from fairly frequently. In fact, the story 'The Mistletoe Bride' rings very similar to the words of the aforementioned ghost. As well as that, both authors have built the atmosphere in their books very heavily, and have done it well.

The other main feature of 'The Moment Collector' is the love triangle. Of course the obvious choice is the second book in Suzanne Collin's popular Dystopian series, 'Catching Fire'. I actually thought both love triangles were written pretty well, considering it's a pretty overused trope which is often handled appallingly. That really is the only link here however.

'Red Rising' by Pierce Brown felt like a good choice to link with 'Catching Fire'. It definitely falls under the Dystopian fantasy and introduces the idea of people being split into 'categories' (districts in 'Catching Fire', colours in 'Red Rising'), someone rising from the very bottom to the very top, rebellion and some sort of survival 'game' being played. As well as that, there are books in both series that I have yet to read!

This might seem a bit of a jump, seeing as David Almond's 'A Song For Ella Grey' is a romance novel that I really did not enjoy, but there are some connections here. 'Red Rising' makes a lot of references to Greco-Roman culture, lifestyle and mythology (which I really enjoyed because I'm a nerd for that sort of thing). 'A Song For Ella Grey' is based on the Greek Myth of Orpheus' life, mainly focusing on the 'Eurydice' section.

This month ended up being quite varied in terms of choices. I really liked this month's compilation, despite struggling to come up with it!