Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme that was started by @Lauren’s Page Turners but is now currently being hosted by Emily @ Budget Tales Book Blog. This meme is quite easy to follow – just randomly pick a book from your to-be-read list and give the reasons why you want to read it. It is that simple.

This week’s book:

Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson

Blurb from Goodreads

In a crowded London pub, two young people meet. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists–he a photographer, she a dancer–and both are trying to make their mark in a world that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence, and over the course of a year they find their relationship tested by forces beyond their control.

Narrated with deep intimacy, Open Water is at once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity that asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body; to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength; to find safety in love, only to lose it. With gorgeous, soulful intensity, and blistering emotional intelligence, Caleb Azumah Nelson gives a profoundly sensitive portrait of romantic love in all its feverish waves and comforting beauty.

This is one of the most essential debut novels of recent years, heralding the arrival of a stellar and prodigious young talent.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday everyone! Just like that, in the blink of an eye, we are already on the last Monday of November. In two days, we will be welcoming December. Finally, 2021 is slowly drawing to a close and a new year is just over the horizon. It is both exciting and anxiety inducing, especially with the discovery of a more potent and virulent variant of the COVID19 virus. It seems that we are simultaneously gaining traction and and erasing the progress that we have made the past two years. I just hope that its spread will be contained. On another note, I hope that you are all doing well and are all healthy, in spirit, mind, and body. I hope that your prayers have been answered and that you are reaping the fruits of the seeds you have sowed throughout the year. I also pray for your healing and that you will find the heart to forgive those who have trespassed against you. If there is one wish that I hope would be granted it would be for this pandemic to end. The new year fills me with anxiety but it also beacons with hope. I am looking forward to what 2022 has in store.

Monday is not my favorite day of the week and I know many of you feel the same. Haha. But one still has to go through the motions I guess. One think I look forward to during the start of the week is posting a new Goodreads Monday update. Reading-wise, I have been focusing on books on my reading challenges, in particular my 2021 Top 21 Reading List and I am, thankfully, down to my last two books. For my Goodreads Monday updates, I have lately been featuring books that I recently added to my (perpetually growing) reading list. The latest addition to my Goodreads “Want to Read” list was Lorena Hughes’ The Spanish Daughter. However, for this Goodreads Monday update, I am featuring British Ghanaian writer Caleb Azumah Nelson’s Open Water.

I can’t recall where I first encountered Caleb Azumah Nelson’s Open Water but I added it to my reading list nonetheless. I was curious what the book was about; to be honest, it was just now that I read the book’s synopsis. The book’s premise, I must say, made me more intrigued. Lately, I have been encountering the book which what further drew my attention to it. The book was constantly listed as one of the best books of 2021. With the year drawing to a close, such list has become ubiquitous, from both book bloggers and online literary publications. Many has sang songs of praises for the book, further piquing my interest. Even Yaa Gyasi, author of the popular debut novel Homegoing, praised the book. Open Water is also Nelson’s debut novel. I hope I get to obtain a copy of the book soon.

How about you fellow reader? What are the most recent additions to your reading lists? Perhaps you could share it in the comment box. For now, happy Monday! I hope you will all have a great week ahead! And as always, happy reading!

Advertisement