Six Degrees of Separation ~ All Fours

Miranda July
"All Fours" - 2024

#6Degrees of Separation: 
from All Fours (Goodreads) to Big Mouth & Ugly Girl 

#6Degrees is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. I love the idea. Thank you, Kate. See more about this challenge, its history, further books and how I found this here.

The starter book this month is "All Fours" by Miranda July. I guess it's no news to you that I haven't read this book. That only happens once in a blue moon.

This is the description of this novel:

"An irreverently sexy, tender, hilarious, and surprising novel about a woman upending her life

A semifamous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.

Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive."

I usually like going from one word in a title to another book that has that same word in their title and so on. In the past months, I couldn't do that, so I had to go with the subject. I prefer this one because it leads to all sorts of different genres. But they both have its attraction. Let's see what you think.

Doerr, Anthony "All the Light We Cannot See" - 2014 
Anthony Doerr managed to write a different kind of war story, a story about the little people, on either side of the war, those that had not much to say about what was happening to them and who paid the highest price. He tells the story of a German orphan boy and a blind French girl who both suffer from what happened, who were probably not even in school when the election in Germany decided about their fate and who had to pay the highest price.

Leky, Mariana "What You Can See From Here" (GE: Was man von hier aus sehen kann) - 2017
This was such a lovely book, a story of a small village where everyone sticks together, no matter how hard it is sometimes, where everyone looks after everybody else, whether they like them or not. A great description of a functioning small community. The novel has been described as "warm". Yes, it is that but it is so much more. It's a love story as well as a philosophical quest, a coming of age story as well one about old age.

Bryson, Bill "Neither Here Nor There. Travels in Europe" - 1991
If you know Europe, it's an interesting tour to take with an outsider, if you don't know Europe, you can discover it with this book.

Tsumura, Kikuko "There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job" (Konoyoni tayasui shigoto wa na/この世にたやすい仕事はない) - 2015

A young woman goes from one job to the next. Jobs that don't seem to require any special experience or talents. Or is that so? The more we get to know the protagonist, we get to recognize that she has a lot of talents and uses them well to go through her various tasks.

Perry, Matthew "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing" - 2022
Matthew Perry opens up, he tells us everything about his life. This is a great book for those trying to understand this illness.

Oates, Joyce Carol "Big Mouth & Ugly Girl" - 2003
This is about two young people at a school where someone has to stand up for what's happening. the learn that it's your personality that counts and that you should be true to yourself and to others. The two kids in this book learn this the hard way.

A journey back to our teenage years.

* * *

There is a connection between the first and the last degree, they both talk about a boy and a girl and their problems to get on in life.

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