#6Degrees: Unboxed to...

As ever, a huge thank you to Annabel Smith and Emma Chapman for letting me use their idea for the 6Degrees meme. If you want to join in, just start with The Unboxed and make your own chain of six books, linking in any way you like. (And remember to add the link as a comment!)

Unboxed - one of the most moving books I've read so far this year - was written by Non Pratt and there are many ways I could link it from there - either to one of her first two books, Trouble or Remix, which like Unboxed are superb, or to one of the authors whose YALC panels I missed as I was too utterly engrossed in Unboxed to put it down (but that one may be tactless, so I won't!) I'll also avoid the temptation to link to Leigh Bardugo because Non cosplayed brilliantly as Six Of Crows's incredible Kaz Brekker. (Seriously though this was AMAZING!) Instead I'll jump to I'll Be Home For Christmas, the upcoming anthology from Stripes which sees lots of UKYA authors - Non among them - telling stories about Christmas. I'm reading this at the moment (via NetGalley) and it's a really special book with lots of fantastic stories, and is raising both money for and awareness of Crisis, a fabulous charity.

One of the other authors in the anthology is Holly Bourne, whose Spinster Club trilogy, particularly the just released What's A Girl Gotta Do?, are some of my absolute favourite contemporary books. Funny, feminist, and justifiably furious, they are a call to arms as well as being a fantastic series.

What's A Girl Gotta Do? caused something of a Twitter storm last week with the #IAmAFeminist hashtag. Juno Dawson, author of lots of fabulous books (of which my favourite is Mind Your Head, her recent non-fiction book about mental health) wrote a superb piece for Glamour Magazine on being caught up in the storm.

Juno was at YALC where she was extremely busy - she took part in Ask YALC on Sunday, with Holly, Rosalind Jana, and Gemma Cairney, in addition to talking to You Know Me Well authors David Levithan and Nina LaCour on Saturday in one of my favourite panels of the weekend. You Know Me Well is a really wonderful books and it was fascinating hearing them talk about it.

And finally, You Know Me Well is centred around San Francisco Pride. Linking via Pride, it was amazing to hear from several booksellers I know that Lucy Sutcliffe's outstanding memoir Girl Hearts Girl, released here just before London Pride, has been flying off shelves! It's a gorgeous read which looks at coming out, finding love, and dealing with anxiety, and is a really inspirational book.