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:

Land of Milk and Honey by C. Pam Zhang

Blurb from Goodreads

The award-winning author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold returns with a rapturous and revelatory novel about a young chef whose discovery of pleasure alters her life and, indirectly, the world

A smog has spread. Food crops are rapidly disappearing. A chef escapes her dying career in a dreary city to take a job at a decadent mountaintop colony seemingly free of the world’s troubles.

There, the sky is clear again. Rare ingredients abound. Her enigmatic employer and his visionary daughter have built a lush new life for the global elite, one that reawakens the chef to the pleasures of taste, touch, and her own body.

In this atmosphere of hidden wonders and cool, seductive violence, the chef’s boundaries undergo a thrilling erosion. Soon she is pushed to the center of a startling attempt to reshape the world far beyond the plate.

Sensuous and surprising, joyous and bitingly sharp, told in language as alluring as it is original, Land of Milk and Honey lays provocatively bare the ethics of seeking pleasure in a dying world. It is a daringly imaginative exploration of desire and deception, privilege and faith, and the roles we play to survive. Most of all, it is a love letter to food, to wild delight, and to the transformative power of a woman embracing her own appetite.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday everyone! Just like that, we are on the second Monday of the last month of the year. Woah. Time flies fast! We have about twenty days left before 2023 officially ends. I hope that we spend the remaining days of the year reaping the rewards of our hard work. I hope that before 2024 starts, we will end 2023 with a bang. I hope that we spend the rest of the year with our loved ones, may it be our families, friends, or our significant others. I hope that the rest of the year will be brimming with good news and blessings. For those who had to deal with unkindness throughout the year, I hope that the rest of the year will be kind to you and to everyone.

2023, I must say, has been a very productive reading year. I was able to break new boundaries such as reading my 1,000th novel and reading over 100 books for the second year in a row. However, I have been lagging behind my reading challenges although in the past week, I was finally able to complete the two reading challenges that are high on my list. I have now turned my attention to reading books from my 2023 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To List. I am currently reading the fifth book from the list, Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions For You. It is also just my sixth new book this year, underlining how much of a backlist reader I am.

In the past few years, I have been trying to incorporate more new works into my reading journey. I did fairly well in the past two or three years but I can’t say the same for this year. Less than ten new books is not bad but it still falls below my goal. Speaking of new books, one of the 2023 books I am looking forward to is C Pam Zhang’s Land of Milk and Honey. I first came across the Chinese-American writer way back in 2020 when her debut novel How Much of These Hills Is Gold became part of my 2020 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To List; 2020 is the year I was closest to completing all books on the said list. I must say, How Much of These Hills Is Gold really impressed me and made me look forward to what Zhang had in store.

When the news of Zhang releasing a new novel reached me – I think it was when I was researching for books to include in my 2023 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To List – I didn’t hesitate to add the book to my reading list. If I were to judge the book based on the title alone, I surmise that Land of Milk and Honey is about the proverbial American dream which would make it resonate with Zhang’s debut novel. I don’t mind if it will explore the same subject. I am, however, interested in how she will spin a new tale based on the same subject. I am also looking forward to how her storytelling has developed. Her writing in her debut novel was rather crude although this roughness worked with the novel and its theme. I want to see if Land of Milk and Honey will offer a new dimension to Zhang’s writing and storytelling.

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!