The Six Degrees of Separation Meme: Revolutionary Road

Hosted each month by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, this meme picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six steps. (Here’s my one for last monthNever Let Me Go to Electricity by Ray Robinson).

revolutionary-roadThis month the starting book is Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. Now this is a book I really should read – I’ve owned a copy for ages, I have the DVD of the film too – which I haven’t watched either and should.

However, for my first link, I am using the film tie-in edition cover as the film starred Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslett, and it is Dicaprio that will lead me to:

revenant1. The Revenant by Michael Punke (which I reviewed here). Dicaprio starred in this grizzly revenge story, but I have no desire to see that film – I did enjoy the book though which was based upon the historical record. It’s protagonist, Hugh Glass existed, and was mauled by a grizzly bear and left for dead while scouting for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company in 1823.

A crucial part of the story is the journey up a river in winter and encounters with various tribes of native Americans along its banks. The river in winter leads me to another tale of exploration involving a difficult journey in Alaska in:

tinder-press-bright-edge-cover-large2. To The Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey which I reviewed here for Shiny. Again the exploration is a race against time before the winter sets in Alaska. Ivey’s second novel was everything I hoped it would be – a wonderful book.

Alaska is separated from Siberia by the 51 mile wide Bering Strait – and used to be part of Russia until 1867, which leads me to my third step:

far-north3. Far North by Marcel Theroux, reviewed on my old blog here, which is set in Siberia, a dystopian Siberia which has been settled by Quakers from the Americas who had moved there for a return to a simpler life, which in turn was shattered by influxes of outsiders moving north as the environmental changes take impact. Communities are again forced into survivalist mode and it reaches a stage in the town of Evangeline where there’s just Makepeace left. Loved this book.

The winter feel to my links has one more step before taking  very different turn, and another fabulous novel set in Siberia is:

peoples-act-of-love4. The People’s Act of Love by James Meek, which I read pre-blog and gave a score of 10/10. The mixture of love story, prison break, religious cult, and war story combine potently to make something that appears 100% Russian (not that I’d know what that is, but that’s the feeling I got). Atmospheric, exciting, mad and very, very cold.

In this novel, one of the characters is said to be a cannibal, and that leads me to:

savages5. The Savages by Matt Whyman.  Reviewed here on my old blog,  I titled my review of this novel,
“Come dine on – oops – with me…” and as the strapline says, “They’d love to have you for dinner.”  The Savages are just a normal suburban family – except that they’re cannibals. Things start to get difficult, when teenager daughter Sasha has a new boyfriend who is vegetarian, he challenges her to go veggie…

It is a YA novel, but I howled with laughter all the way through, it’s so well done. Which leads me to my last link. Thinking about Ordinary families who aren’t and daughters changing their diets – we’re switching from cannibalism to vampires:

radleys6. The Radleys by Matt Haig. Reviewed here on my old blog.  In The Radleys Haig takes a very different look at family life. Peter, a rather world-weary doctor, and his frustrated artist wife Helen, live in a Yorkshire town with their teenaged children, Clara and Rowan. To all outward purposes they are a totally normal dysfunctional family, but Peter and Helen have a big secret – they’re vampires, and what’s more, their children don’t know!

The Radleys are ‘abstainers’ – non-practising vampires; since their children were born, they’ve been models of restraint, relying on a diet full of red meat, but now they’re up against teenagers with hormones, and Clara is trying to become a Vegan…

So there we are:  Revolutionary Road to The Radleys.

If you want to join in, please link to this month’s page here and add your link to the Mr Linky widget.  Next month’s starter book is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

13 thoughts on “The Six Degrees of Separation Meme: Revolutionary Road

  1. Margaret @ BooksPlease says:

    What I like about this meme is the variety in the chains. I’ve read two of the books in yours – To The Bright Edge of the World which I read in November and absolutely loved. But I can’t say the same for The People’s Act of Love. I read it pre-blogging too and at the time I noted that it was quite good, but boring in parts and strange – we can’t all like the same books! I think it was the cannibalism that put me off.

    • AnnaBookBel says:

      I like strange in a book Margaret – so that one really appealed to me. Glad you liked the Ivey though, it was brilliant wasn’t it.

  2. Kate @ booksaremyfavouriteandbest says:

    Well I’m glad someone got the actor link right! 😀

    I’ve had The Snow Child in my TBR stack since it was released (in fact, I think I even pre-ordered it!) and when I spotted her latest, it immediately appealed as well – not letting myself near it until I read The Snow Child though!

    Thanks for playing.

    • AnnaBookBel says:

      Thanks Kate – I’ve got next month’s planned already! Loving this meme.

      You *MUST* read The Snow Child. It is magical.

  3. Ed says:

    I have also read “The Revenant” recently, and I enjoyed it. But I confess that I only skimmed the passages which gave detailed descriptions of the main character’s wounds from the bear attack. I am not sure if I want to see the movie, especially if it is gory.

    • AnnaBookBel says:

      I’m certainly not bothered about the movie (which was also long) as well as gory, grim and cold – apparently. The book was good though.

  4. FictionFan says:

    Love seeing where all the chains lead! I’m so pleased to see Far North on here with such positive comments, since it’s my on my TBR for ages, ever since I read his Strange Bodies and loved it. Must push Far North up the priority list – thanks for the reminder!

    • AnnaBookBel says:

      And I must read Strange Bodies – it’s in my TBR. If you read yours, I’ll read mine… how about it? 🙂

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