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:

Room by Emma Donoghue

Blurb from Goodreads

To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world….

Told in the inventive, funny, and poignant voice of Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience—and a powerful story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it’s where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it’s not enough … not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son’s bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.

Why I Want To Read It

A new (work) week has arrived! I hope you had a great start to the week. We are slowly inching toward the end of the year. Could you imagine that in a couple of weeks, we will again be welcoming a new year? The previous ones, due to the pandemic, have been filled with uncertainties. However, with the extensive vaccination drive, the spread of the virus has been stymied. Not to a complete halt but to a manageable level. With this, I have nothing but high hopes for the coming year. I hope that everything will finally be better. Sure, things are slowly returning to normal but the virus remains a threat. I just hope that we will not be undoing the progress we have made. With this, I remind everyone to be diligent in observing minimum health protocols. We can never be too complacent, especially with the rate the virus mutates and spreads.

Anyway, as the curtain slowly draws a close in 2022, I hope that the remaining days of the year will be kind to everyone. I pray that it will be filled with nothing but great news. I also hope that all your hard work will get repaid (ahem, 13th month pay?) and that all your prayers get answered or that they have already been answered. I hope that the rest of the week will go great for everyone. More importantly, I hope that you are all doing well and are in a good state of health, both in your mind and body.

To kickstart the blogging week, I am posting a new Goodreads Monday update. This month, I have shifted my focus to completing all the books on my active reading challenges. Earlier today, I finished my first novel by Nobel Laureate in Literature Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, A Bend in the River. It was a skillful rendering of Africa’s contemporary history, following the fall of colonialism. The book is the 21st book from my 2022 Top 22 Reading List while my current read, Sheila Heti’s Pure Colour is the eighth book from my 2022 Top 10 Books I Look Forward to List. However, for this week, I am not featuring a book from these reading challenges. This week’s featured book is Emma Donoghue’s Room.

I can’t remember when I first encountered Emma Donoghue and her novel. However, I do recall that it was through the book’s movie adaptation that I first came across the Irish-Canadian author; prior to that, I had not iota about who she was nor had I ever heard any of her works before. When I first came across the book, I was apprehensive about reading it. It seems that it was not the kind I usually read. A couple of years later, I came across the book again and I finally relented. Besides, we should never judge a book by its cover. I also wanted to know what the blurb was about; you can say I am a curious cat. Moreover, I am a fan of Irish prose. I find Irish writers write very lyrical and, at the same time, compelling stories.

I can’t recall the last book I read that involved a mother and son which gives me a reason to look forward to Room. It does feel like the book has a lot more to unpack beyond the story of a parent and a child. I was actually hoping to read the book this year, particularly as part of my venture into European literature. However, I had too many good titles in line that Room was pushed down. Hopefully, I get to read the book later this year, otherwise, I hope to read it in 2023. Oh, I just learned that the novel is a thriller! Then it is like Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Song, where crime intersects with the writer’s primary message? I hope not.

How about you fellow reader? What books have you added to your reading list? Do drop it in the comment box. For now, happy Monday and, as always, happy reading!

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