#6Degrees of Separation: Harry Potter

The lovely Jim of YA Yeah Yeah and Teens on Moon Lane has reinvented the 6 Degrees of Separation meme for MG and YA and asked me to take part! How it works: everyone starts with one book – today it’s Harry Potter – and from there, five books will be linked together in whichever way you can think of. The connections I've made between the novels are in  bold. Here’s mine!

Harry Potter, JK Rowling

The Wizarding World is most people’s most beloved fictional world, and it’s definitely mine, but I actually wasn’t interested in it when I was first given the first three books in the series for Christmas the year before Goblet of Fire was released. Then we had Philosopher’s Stone read to us at school and as soon as I got home I devoured the rest of the novel. This series became a forever love.

Matilda, Roald Dahl

Matilda is the book I credit with my falling in love with reading. I clearly remember finally picking it up one night when I couldn’t sleep and my mum advised reading something, then running downstairs to tell her that I could see it happening in my head! It was a revelation, and from a book that I was given by someone (my Nan, maybe?) that I just wasn’t interested in. Matilda was also adapted into one of my favourite book to film adaptations ever and it stars the brilliant Danny Devito.

The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides

Another book to be adapted for the silver screen and to star Danny Devito is one of my first reads of 2016 – The Virgin Suicides. This is a book that I've meant to read for years and years so I finally picked it up on audio and I was quite disappointed. I loved the claustrophobic, hot summer atmosphere and the style was really interesting, but it just didn’t capture me. I felt no emotional involvement which is crazy considering this novel is about suicide and mental health.

All the Bright Places, Jennifer Niven

This is another novel that deals with mental health and suicide, but in a very different way. I really, really enjoyed this when I read it early in 2015 but since then, some really problematic ideas have been raised about the novel which I do agree with. But it is a beautifully written book and easily one of the most emotional of those I read last year.

The Song Achilles, Madeline Miller

The Song of Achilles is another incredibly emotional read from last year and one of my top five from the 230-odd books I read in 2015. It’s so, so beautiful and the retelling of the story of Achilles and Patroclus growing up and ending in the Trojan War is breathtaking. I’m a real sucker for retellings of Greek mythology.

The Goddess Test, Aimee Carter

Aimee Carter’s trilogy is a retelling of Persephone’s myth and I really, really loved the first two books in the trilogy. Sadly, the final book wasn’t even published in the UK so I bought it when it eventually became available on Kindle, but it’s been so long! I do remember it being a really fun series with accessible mythological references and stories, though.

So there you have my #6Degrees! Why not have a go yourself?

Sophie