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:

How High We Go In The Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

Blurb from Goodreads

For fans of Cloud Atlas and Station Eleven, a spellbinding and profoundly prescient debut that follows a cast of intricately linked characters over hundreds of years as humanity struggles to rebuild itself in the aftermath of a climate plague—a daring and deeply heartfelt work of mind-bending imagination from a singular new voice.

Beginning in 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus.

Once unleashed, the Arctic Plague will reshape life on earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy. In a theme park designed for terminally ill children, a cynical employee falls in love with a mother desperate to hold on to her infected son. A heartbroken scientist searching for a cure finds a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects—a pig—develops the capacity for human speech. A widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter embark on a cosmic quest to locate a new home planet.

From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead to interstellar starships, Sequoia Nagamatsu takes readers on a wildly original and compassionate journey, spanning continents, centuries, and even celestial bodies to tell a story about the resiliency of the human spirit, our infinite capacity to dream, and the connective threads that tie us all together in the universe.

Why I Want To Read It

And just like that, the first month of 2022 is ending. Wow, in the span of 31 days, it feels like a full year has passed us by. So many things have happened, in all aspects of life. The virus still looms, and as it evolves into more variants, things seem dire. Nevertheless, I hope things will finally start looking up. I pray that the pandemic will end soon. Yesterday, Rafael Nadal won his 21st Grand Slam title and just his second Australian Open title. The Rod Laver Arena was a witness to many of his heartaches but yesterday, he showed the world what resilience is. The odds were stacked against him. He was playing against the most recent Grand Slam winner, a man younger than him by a good decade. But on the brink of defeat, he rekindled that fire and clawed back to victory. As someone who has followed Nadal’s career, I was excited by his victory over Daniil Medvedev. May we all learn to fight back despite the odds against or favor.

But let me get back to the aim of this weekly post before I get further waylaid (HAHA). Mondays, while it is our least favorite day of the week, also present new opportunities, chances to be a better version of ourselves. It also means the start and like most starts, it can be the most difficult. Nevertheless, Mondays also give me chances to share books that are part of my reading list. I am still swamped with several 2021 Wrap Up posts (and backlogs) but it is no excuse to miss out on a Goodreads Monday update. For the past few weeks, I have been featuring books that are going to be published in 2022. These are books I have recently added to my reading list and I am looking forward to. For the last Monday of January, I am featuring Sequoia Nagamatsu’s How High We Go In The Dark.

It was while searching for books to include in my 2022 Books I Look Forward To List that I came across Sequoia Nagamatsu and his latest work, How High We Go in the Dark. I have never read any of the writer’s work before, which piqued my interest even more. However, it was the novel’s premise that captured my interest. The book, it seems, was rife with elements of science fiction, a genre that I am generally averse to if I have to be honest. Nevertheless, there was something about the book that appealed to me – perhaps it was the prospect of experiencing a new voice, or perhaps it was the promising storyline, or perhaps it was the curiosity. I just knew I have to read the book and find out exactly what reeled me in, hence, the book’s inclusion in my 2022 most anticipated books list.

I hope the book won’t disappoint. I mean, don’t we all hope for the same Just recently released this January 2022, I am crossing my fingers that I will get to obtain a copy of the book without much trouble. How about you fellow reader? What 2022 books are you looking forward to? I hope you could share it in the comment box. For now, happy Monday, and as always, happy reading!

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