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:

Simone by Eduardo Lalo

Blurb from Goodreads

Eduardo Lalo is one of the most vital and unique voices of Latin American literature, but his work is relatively little known in the English-speaking world. That changes now: this masterful translation of his most celebrated novel, Simone—which won the 2013 Rómulo Gallegos International Novel Prize—will introduce an English-language audience to this extraordinary literary talent.

A tale of alienation, love, suspense, imagination, and literature set on the streets of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Simone tells the story of a self-educated Chinese immigrant student courting (and stalking) a disillusioned, unnamed writer who is struggling to make a name for himself in a place that is not exactly a hotbed of literary fame. By turns solipsistic and political, romantic and dark, Simone begins with the writer’s frustrated, satiric observations on his native city and the banal life of the university where he teaches—forces utterly at odds with the sensuality of his writing. But, as mysterious messages and literary clues begin to appear—scrawled on sidewalks and walls, inside volumes set out in bookstores, left on his answering machine and under his windshield wiper—Simone progresses into a cat-and-mouse game between the writer and his mystery stalker. When the eponymous Simone’s identity is at last revealed, the writer finds in the life of this Chinese immigrant a plight not unlike his own. Traumatized and lonely, the pair moves towards bittersweet collaborations in passion, grief, and art.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday, everyone! Just like that, we are already in the third workweek of the second month of 2026. Woah. We have already made it to the second half of February. How time flies! Time takes its natural course. It flows forward, sans regard to any of. As such, I hope that the year is going—and will continue to go—well for everyone. I hope that the year will curry favor with you all. Things are starting to look up at work. After a couple of hectic and challenging weeks, things are starting to take a more normal rhythm. There are still challenges before me, but hey, I do enjoy challenges. Well, at least some times. Anyway, I hope everyone had a good start to the workweek and the year. The new week brims with hope and fresh starts. I hope that the week will flow in everyone’s favor. Wishing you continued success and happiness.

I know—not many people get excited about Mondays (though I’m sure a few are out there). I, too, am not exactly a fan. I hope that as the week moves forward, I hope you slowly gain a semblance of momentum. After all, we’ve got to start somewhere, and Monday is one of those starting points. More importantly, I hope everyone is doing well—mentally, emotionally, and physically. To commence my reading year, I have immersed myself in the works of Latin American writers, as it has been some time since I last had a Latin American and Caribbean literature month. I am nearly halfway through Patrick Chamoiseau’s Texaco. Interestingly, it was just recently that I encountered the Martinican writer through an online bookseller. Curious about what the book has in store, I immediately delved into it.

This week’s featured book, meanwhile, is from another Caribbean island, Puerto Rico. I just learned that today, the American territory is commemorating the Day of Illustrious Puerto Ricans. This day is observed to celebrate heroes and prominent names who made significant contributions to Puerto Rican history and culture. A gauge for culture, as always, is literature. Unfortunately, I can’t say I have read that much work of Puerto Rican writers. A quick research of essential Puerto Rican reads yields Eduardo Lalo’s Simone. While Lalo is prominent in the Spanish-speaking Puerto Rican literary circles, most of his works are not available to Anglophone readers. It was just recently that some of his works were translated into English. Among his works to be translated was Simone, which won the 2013 Rómulo Gallegos International Novel Prize.

Originally published in 2012, Simone promises to guide the readers across the oeuvre of the Puerto Rican writer. It is, in many ways, a primer to his body of work, particularly because of the accolades it has earned. However, it also promises to guide the readers through the streets of San Juan, the Puerto Rican capital, particularly across the Old City. Serving as a guide is the anonymous narrator, who, apparently, is middle-aged and is a writer by profession. The novel’s premise is quite interesting and is worth a look, or maybe a read. For now, I hope I get to obtain a copy of the book. How about you, fellow readers? How was your Monday? What books have you recently added to your reading list? Drop your thoughts in the comments. For now—happy Monday, and as always, happy reading!