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:

Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt

Blurb from Goodreads

A stunning debut novel from the acclaimed young Irish poet Seán Hewitt, reminiscent of Garth Greenwell and Douglas Stuart in the intensity of its evocation of sexual awakening.

Set in a remote village in the North of England, Open, Heaven unfolds over the course of one year in which two sixteen year old boys meet and transform each other’s lives.

In 2021, fifteen-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island James—a sheltered, shy sixteen-year-old—is alone in his newly discovered sexuality, full of an unruly desire but entirely inexperienced. As he is beginning to understand himself and his longings, he also realizes how his feelings threaten to separate him from his family and the rural community he has grown up in. He dreams of another life, fantasizing about what lies beyond the village’s leaf-ribboned boundaries, beyond his autonomy, tenderness, sex. Then, in the autumn of 2002, he meets Luke, a slightly older boy, handsome, unkempt, who comes with a reputation for danger. Abandoned by his parents—his father imprisoned, and his mother having moved to France for another man—Luke has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle at their farm just outside the village. James is immediately drawn to him, like the pull a fire makes on the air, dragging things into it and blazing them into its hot, white centre, drawn to this boy who is beautiful and impulsive, charismatic, troubled. But underneath Luke’s bravado is a deep wound—a longing for the love of his father and for the stability of family life.

Open, Heaven is a novel about desire, yearning, and the terror of first love. With the striking economy and lyricism that animate his work as a poet, Hewitt has written a mesmerizing hymn to boyhood, sensuality, and love in all its forms. A truly exceptional debut.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday everyone! I hope everyone had a great start to the work week. I am well aware that nearly everyone – and this includes me – loath Mondays because it means marching back to the office or school. I wish the weekends were longer. Thankfully, this is going to be a short workweek because June 6 has been announced as a holiday here in the Philippines. Nevertheless, I hope the break prepared you for the tough workweek ahead. I have another thing to be thankful for. It has started to cool down here in the Philippines. The rainy season has started to make its presence felt although it is still a little hot. I sure hope everyone is somewhere comfortable. Anyway, I hope everyone makes it through the week. More importantly, I hope everyone is doing well, in mind, body, and spirit, not only this week but for the rest of the year.

Woah, the time has been flying past us. We are already on the second day of the sixth month of the year. Hello June! How time flies! It takes its natural course sans any regard for anyone. As time takes its natural course, I hope that the year is treating you well. I hope that as 2025 moves forward, everyone will have a prosperous year. I hope the coming months will shower everyone with good news and kindness. I wish success and blessings for everyone. With the start of the week is a fresh Goodreads Monday update. To open June, I decided to pursue my foray into the works of Asian writers. This is partly because I acquired copies of books that are part of my 2025 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To List; these books happen to be written by Asian writers. I am currently reading Malaysian writer Tash Aw’s The South and I am planning to read Ocean Vuong’s latest novel, The Emperor of Gladness.

In a way, these books share something in common with this week’s Goodreads Monday featured book, Seán Hewitt’s Open, Heaven. All three novels are works of queer fiction; it was only today that I realized that Open, Heaven is of this genre. I didn’t realize that three of the ten books in my 2025 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To list are works of queer fiction; the other being Santanu Bhattacharya’s Deviants. With June being Pride Month, this makes these books in tune with the month’s celebration although reading these books now was without design. I don’t have anything against the genre. Rather, I am excited to read these books because they provide me windows into different worlds. They also provide intimate glimpses into spaces that I might have no understanding of. I guess this is my general expectation in all works, regardless of the genre.

Anyway, I just learned today that Seán Hewitt is an award-winning poet and that we were both born in the same year (1990). Open, Heaven is his first foray into fiction. This makes me look forward to this debut novel. On top of this, I have always been in awe of Irish writers. They are skilled at stringing lyrical sentences that tickle the imagination and leave the reader in awe. For now, I just hope I can once again get the chance to obtain a copy of the book. 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!