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:

The Book of Mother by Violaine Huisman

Blurb from Goodreads

A gorgeous, critically acclaimed debut novel about a young woman coming of age with a dazzling yet damaged mother who lived and loved in extremes.

A prizewinning tour de force when it was published in France, Violaine Huisman’s remarkable debut novel is about a daughter’s inextinguishable love for her magnetic, mercurial mother. Beautiful and charismatic, Catherine, a.k.a. “Maman,” smokes too much, drives too fast, laughs too hard, and loves too extravagantly. During a joyful and chaotic childhood in Paris, her daughter Violaine wouldn’t have it any other way.

But when Maman is hospitalized after a third divorce and a breakdown, everything changes. Even as Violaine and her sister long for their mother’s return, once she’s back Maman’s violent mood swings and flagrant disregard for personal boundaries soon turn their home into an emotional landmine. As the story of Catherine’s own traumatic childhood and adolescence unfolds, the pieces come together to form an indelible portrait of a mother as irresistible as she is impossible, as triumphant as she is transgressive.

With spectacular ferocity of language, a streak of dark humor, and stunning emotional bravery, The Book of Mother is an exquisitely wrought story of a mother’s dizzying heights and devastating lows, and a daughter who must hold her memory close in order to let go.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday everyone! A new week has started! I hope you doing well, in body, mind, and spirit. I also hope that you started this new week with flying colors. Else, I hope that things will start looking up and that the rest of the week will be a good one. COVID19 situation in the Philippines is certainly starting to look up after that Omicron surge that has swept us back in January. These are small rays of light but they still provide hope in these dark times. I hope that we can sustain this momentum, especially with the National Elections coming up in May. Despite the bleakness that has hovered above us these past two years, hope still springs eternal. I can’t wait for this pandemic to end.

With Mondays comes a new Goodreads Monday update. Like most of you, Monday is my least favorite day of the week. However, the new week comes with it an opportunity to share books that are part or have become part of my perpetually growing reading list. My Goodreads Want To Read list is still continuing to grow as I encounter books that pique my interest. In the past week, I have added books longlisted for the 2022 Booker International Prize and the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Award nomination season has begun and I can’t wait to read the books nominated for these awards. Of the 29 books nominated for these awards, I have already read five. I am hoping to add to that tally Violaine Huisman’s The Book of Mother.

I would have not encountered this book had it not been longlisted for the 2022 Booker International Prize; the longlist was released in the past week. The Book of Mother is French writer Violaine Huisman’s debut novel. It was originally published in French in 2018. It was translated into English by Leslie Camhi. Apparently, the book has received several accolades in Huisman’s homeland, including the  Prix Françoise Sagan and the Prix Marie Claire. This reminds me of Olga Tokarczuk’s The Books of Jacob, which won the 2014 Nike Prize in Poland and was also nominated for the Booker International Prize. It is one of two books I have read so far from the longlist. I am hoping to make The Book of Mother the third book. The book also reminds me of Jessamine Chan’s debut novel, The School for Good Mothers. The premises of the three books, of course, are different from each other.

How about you fellow reader? What book written by a female author 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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