Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme started by @Lauren’s Page Turners but is currently 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 explain why you want to read it. It is that simple.

This week’s book:

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

Blurb from Goodreads

The eagerly awaited follow-up to Pulitzer Prize-finalist Tommy Orange’s breakout best seller There There —winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award, the John Leonard Prize, the American Book Award, and one of the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2018— Wandering Stars traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through to the shattering aftermath of Orvil Red Feather’s shooting in There There.

Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion Prison Castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines.

Oakland, 2018. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield is barely holding her family together after the shooting that nearly took the life of her nephew Orvil. From the moment he awakens in his hospital bed, Orvil begins compulsively googling school shootings on YouTube. He also becomes emotionally reliant on the prescription medications meant to ease his physical trauma. His younger brother, Lony, suffering from PTSD, is struggling to make sense of the carnage he witnessed at the shooting by secretly cutting himself and enacting blood rituals that he hopes will connect him to his Cheyenne heritage. Opal is equally adrift, experimenting with Ceremony and peyote, searching for a way to heal her wounded family.

Extending his constellation of narratives into the past and future, Tommy Orange once again delivers a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous, a book piercing in its poetry, sorrow, and rage—a masterful follow-up to his already-classic first novel, and a devastating indictment of America’s war on its own people.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday everyone! Technically it is already Tuesday but I still want to say this dreaded phrase knowing that Monday is nearly everyone’s least favorite day of the work. It means the start of a new work and academic week. Many are still feeling a little sluggish. Perhaps a weekend hangover? Nevertheless, I hope that everyone started the week on a high note. After all, Mondays also provide us a fresh opportunity to chase after our dreams or to start again. It is an opportunity to recalibrate or maybe even redirect or take a new path. Whatever Monday means to you, I hope that the rest of the week will go in your favor. I hope that the week will flow smoothly. More importantly, I hope that everyone is doing well, in mind, body, and spirit.

I just realized that yesterday was the first Monday of September. We have already entered the -ber months which also means that the new year is just over the horizon. But while the flow of time is inevitable, I hope that the remainder of the year will be brimming with success, good news, blessings, and positive energy for everyone. As has been customary in the past five years, I am opening another blogging week with a fresh Goodreads Monday update. After pondering, I opted to read recently published works, i.e. in the past two years, that I have been looking forward to. I am currently reading Kristin Hannah’s most recent novel, The Women. To align with my ongoing reading journey, I have been featuring recently published novels that I am looking forward to.

In the lush landscape of American literature, one of the new writers who has captured my interest is Tommy Orange; technically, he is not new to the scene. I have heard and read positive reviews about his debut novel, There, There, which is still part of my reading list but, unfortunately, I am yet to obtain a copy of the book. Earlier this year (or maybe late last year), I learned that he was publishing a new work, Wandering Stars. It is, I learned, a sequel to his highly-heralded debut novel. And considering the gap between the two books, it is a book that many has been looking forward to. I may have not included the book in my 2024 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To List, I am, nevertheless, looking forward to reading the book, especially after it was longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize.

For now, I just hope I get to obtain a copy of the book and hopefully, soon. 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!