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 Rainbow Troops by Andrea Hirata

Blurb from Goodreads

Published in Indonesia in 2005, “The Rainbow Troops,” Andrea Hirata’s closely autobiographical debut novel, sold more than five million copies, shattering records. Now it promises to captivate audiences around the globe.

Ikal is a student at the poorest village school on the Indonesian island of Belitong, where graduating from sixth grade is considered a remarkable achievement. His school is under constant threat of closure. In fact, Ikal and his friends–a group nicknamed the Rainbow Troops–face threats from every angle: skeptical government officials, greedy corporations hardly distinguishable from the colonialism they’ve replaced, deepening poverty and crumbling infrastructure, and their own low self-confidence.

But the students also have hope, which comes in the form of two extraordinary teachers, and Ikal’s education in and out of the classroom is an uplifting one. We root for him and his friends as they defy the island’s powerful tin mine officials. We meet his first love, the unseen girl who sells chalk from behind a shop screen, whose pretty hands capture Ikal’s heart. We cheer for Lintang, the class’s barefoot math genius, as he bests the students of the mining corporation’s school in an academic challenge. Above all, we gain an intimate acquaintance with the customs and people of the world’s largest Muslim society.

This is classic storytelling in the spirit of Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner” an engrossing depiction of a milieu we have never encountered before, bursting with charm and verve.

Why I Want To Read It

And, the weekend is over. Happy Monday everyone I guess! That is if any of you find something happy about Mondays. I do realize that it is the most dreaded day of the week by most. On the other hand, I see Monday as a door not only to a new week ahead but also to new starts and opportunities. I sure hope that everyone had a great start to the week. I hope that everyone will have a great and productive week ahead. Woah. I just realized that today is the second to the last Monday of the month. In a week, we will be welcoming the eighth month of the year. How time flies. Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well, in body, mind, and spirit.

The first day of the week also means a new blogging week which I always open with a fresh Goodreads Monday update. This has become a staple of my blogging week. In the past two months, I have been featuring works of Asian literature in my weekly Goodreads Monday updates. This is in line with my reading motif for the month; I have done this since my April Japanese literature month. Except for Japanese literature, I recently realized how lacking my exploration of Asian literature is. For instance, my foray into Southeast Asian literature – including my native Philippines – is starkly lacking. To redress this, I have read more works by Southeast Asian writers this year than in any other year.

There is still a long list of books from my part of the world that I want to read and it is only bound to get longer. The book I am featuring in this Goodreads Monday update is one of the latest additions to this growing list. I simply searched for the best works of Southeast Asian literature and one of the titles that came out was Andrea Hirata’s The Rainbow Troops. Now, I won’t deny I have never heard of the Indonesian writer before nor have I read any of his works. Admittedly, Indonesian literature is a part of the literary world that I am still tapping into. My read list only has two works by Indonesian writers and both were written by Eka Kurniawan.

Originally published in 2005 as Laskar Pelangi, The Rainbow Troops was Hirata’s first novel. It also has autobiographical elements, with details of the writer’s childhood experience; this is one of the facets of the book that piqued my interest. The book, I learned, was a bestseller in Hirata’s native Indonesia. It was also the first book in a series and was even adapted into a bestselling film. The challenge for me now is how to obtain a copy of the book. I do hope I get to obtain one, maybe not now but perhaps in the future.

How about you fellow reader? How was your Monday? 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!