Book • Review
Open Water - Caleb Azumah Nelson
US Release Date: April 13, 2021

From the very first page, it was clear to me that Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson was going to be something special. Every word of this beautiful, brief novel feels precise and charged with energy.

Open Water is a love song told in the second person. It is a love song between two people, but it is also a song that expresses so much more. This novel carries so many truths about intimacy, trauma, anxiety, trust, love, what it means to really be seen, and sheds such an unflinchingly bright light on many of the positive and negative aspects of the Black Experience. I found myself tearing up at multiple points in this story, sometimes at the beauty of the prose, sometimes at the truth on the page, and sometimes at the injustice of the everyday experience of these characters.

One of my favorite qualities of this book is the theme of seeing someone/being seen by someone. The novel really keys in on the fact that to really be seen by someone requires an openness and a vulnerability that can feel like drowning at first, but ultimately transcends all fear, and worry, and consciousness, to something far deeper. Nelson pours so much of himself into this deeply personal novel, that it feels as though he is allowing himself to truly be seen by the reader. It was such a special privilege to experience.

Every chapter reads like a poem, or perhaps more accurately, a verse in a stunning song. I Music is such a central part to creating the sense of atmosphere and mood, to the point that I highly recommend you listen to the official Open Water playlist on Spotify while reading this novel.

I could go on and on about this book, but I’ll leave you with this: Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson is an incredible feat of literature, with some of the most stunning prose I have ever read. The truths of this novel are crucial for all readers to understand. Please pick this up!

I had two major problems with that novel, which seem to be the biggest advantages of the book according to many readers. Its highly poetic and as for me the language dominated the content, which may be valuable for many readers. I generally do not like the second person narration. And "Open Water" is fully devoted to that perspective. I had difficulties in indulging into that story and was often bored. Caleb Azumah Nelson did not convince me that this story is worth listening to, but I do not question its value. It was just not my type of a book.

TW: Police Brutality

Open Water is a story about love, vulnerability, freedom, and living while Black. Set in London, it is uniquely told from the 2nd person perspective. You are sucked in, it is winter and you are him and he doesn't have a name. And then, there She is. You see her at the bar one night and ask a friend to introduce you.

The poetic nature of the writing really lends to the pace of the love story on the pages. All the while, the protagonist is living in fear that "today will be the day" that he doesn't come home. It is a deep dive into the reality that Black people face.

An excerpt from a scene when the protagonist is pulled over by police with his friend driving:

"You fit the description. You don't fit in the box but he has squeezed you in. He looked scared. They all did. You wouldn't accept their apologies, nor their extended hands, because even these are weapons in the darkness. Easy mistake to make. Second time this week for your friend, playing dead. Let's ask anyone else who has ever fit a description: you ever had to play dead? Have you ever not been seen? Are you tired?"

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 stars. Wow, I loved this book. The fact that Nelson gets across all of these incredibly raw feelings so eloquently and fully in just 145 pages is nothing short of astounding. Please do yourself a favor and pick up this book. It covers some of what BIPOC have to go through on a daily basis alongside a beautiful love story, which is really a glimpse at a world I won't ever fully be able understand. There is also an amazing playlist that includes a lot of the music that is a focus of this book.

Thanks to Netgalley & Grove Atlantic for providing the ARC on my Kindle. Open Water will be available on April, 13, 2021.

If I had to describe Open Water in three words it would be- tender, poetic, intimate.

It is a phenomenal debut novel that in just under 150 pages, knocks you out with its beauty and packs in a punch.

The prose is exquisite. I literally could quote the whole book- each sentence has been written in such a beautiful, intimate and thoughtful way.

For such a short novel, it is also fantastically multilayered, but doesn’t at all feel rushed and everything is conveyed perfectly.

On the surface, it is a tender and intimate love story between two black young artists, living in London, trying to make their mark in a city where many look at them but don’t really see them.

But it is also a powerful and vulnerable portrayal of masculinity and a vivid and at times heartbreaking account of what it is like to be a black man in London.

What stood out mostly to me was the sense of place and time, I felt like I was walking the streets of London, like I could hear the ever present music.

Another striking part, was the use of the second person perspective. Although, it took me a minute to adjust, it really worked beautifully to bring us right into the story and really allowed me to see through their eyes, to really feel all the emotions and connect with the main characters and their story.

It is a stunning read and one that made me feel and think and that has left a lasting impression and I will be recommending to everyone!

Thank to @netgalley and @groveatlantic for an E-ARC copy in exchange for my honest review

3.5, rounded up. A swooningly lyrical romance, and a moving experience of radical empathy. Nelson uses 2nd-person narration, which is sometimes more distancing than involving, to take snapshots of fleeting moments in the life of a young Black photographer in London. Our narrator (You) meets the love of his life (She), but struggles to remain emotionally open, honest, and vulnerable. He uses striking visual images and sonic impressions when he can't find the words to articulate the psychic wounds of racism and police brutality. For such a short novel, it's highly allusive, dropping pieces of the writings of other authors (Zadie Smith, Teju Cole, James Baldwin) and scenes from the films of Barry Jenkins into the narrative, with an expertly-curated hip-hop soundtrack (Earl Sweatshirt, Kendrick Lamar). While Nelson's prose is poetic and evocative, despite occasionally feeling raw and unfinished, he loses control of the fragmentary narrative about two-thirds of the way through.

<i>Thanks to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for providing an ARC of Open Water in exchange for an honest review.</i>

Open Water follows a young Black British couple through their tentative yet passionate relationship, as they attempt to navigate their feelings for each other (and themselves) within the context of systemic racism.

As the central couple’s love blossoms, so too does their friendship. This raises the stakes in terms of what they stand to lose should things not work out, with the author capturing how simultaneously beautiful and daunting it can be to fall for your best friend. Caleb Azumah Nelson also does a fantastic job of conveying the difficulty inherent to being open with someone when society has conditioned you to supress so much of yourself; the struggle to accept happiness when you’ve been made to feel like you don’t deserve it, as so many Black people have.

The physicality of their relationship is so important; to find intimacy, safety, and understanding with a fellow Black body, when to simply exist within one is to be at risk on the street. I also really admired the recurring look at the importance of the arts as a means for Black people to explore and express their cultural identities on their own terms, when they are otherwise made to feel unseen and unheard.

The author has such a knack for sustaining a very specific mood. An air of balmy heat hangs over the entire narrative, the balance of nostalgia and melancholy making for a hugely absorbing experience. In terms of descriptive detail, an ability to create atmosphere, and to convey emotional depth, the prose is fantastic. The only blips for me throughout the whole reading experience were a few instances in which the dialogue felt awkward; characters striving for philosophical profundity in situations that didn’t feel entirely believable. One of the book’s key narrative and emotional peaks is also framed in a needlessly convenient, thematically heavy-handed way, when the rest of the book is carried by such an understated grace.

Initially, I was hesitant about the book being presented in second-person, as though addressed directly to the reader. This is a notoriously difficult device to pull off, and though I worried it was going to feel like a superfluous creative choice, its relevance becomes clear as the story progresses; ultimately serving as an astute means of furthering the author’s look at identity, and the struggle to truly see yourself without first stepping back to take in the bigger picture.

Tender, wise, and moving, Open Water appears unassuming, but ultimately lands a sucker punch. It marks Caleb Azumah Nelson as an exciting new voice on the literary scene, and I can’t wait to see what he does next.

Thank you to the publisher for a free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

TW: Police Brutality

Open Water is a story about love, vulnerability, freedom, and living while Black. Set in London, it is uniquely told from the 2nd person perspective. You are sucked in, it is winter and you are him and he doesn't have a name. And then, there She is. You see her at the bar one night and ask a friend to introduce you.

The poetic nature of the writing really lends to the pace of the love story on the pages. All the while, the protagonist is living in fear that "today will be the day" that he doesn't come home. It is a deep dive into the reality that Black people face.

An excerpt from a scene when the protagonist is pulled over by police with his friend driving:

"You fit the description. You don't fit in the box but he has squeezed you in. He looked scared. They all did. You wouldn't accept their apologies, nor their extended hands, because even these are weapons in the darkness. Easy mistake to make. Second time this week for your friend, playing dead. Let's ask anyone else who has ever fit a description: you ever had to play dead? Have you ever not been seen? Are you tired?"

An Alicia read! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars. Wow, I loved this book. The fact that Nelson gets across all of these incredibly raw feelings so eloquently and fully in just 145 pages is nothing short of astounding. Please do yourself a favor and pick up this book. It covers some of what BIPOC have to go through on a daily basis alongside a beautiful love story, which is really a glimpse at a world I won't ever fully be able understand. There is also an amazing playlist that includes a lot of the music that is a focus of this book.

Thanks to Netgalley & Grove Atlantic for providing the ARC on my Kindle. Open Water will be available on April, 13, 2021.



***Interested in reading or owning this if you haven't already?? Go to https://bookshop.org/shop/oohiwanttoreadthat to purchase your copy!

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This is a love story between two black artists in London in current times.
There are many rave reviews of this poetic novel, but the second person narrative just didn’t work for me. I had a hard time getting into the story and following it. For me only two stars, but try it for yourself, it might work for you.
Thanks NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the advanced copy.

In this novella's brevity, Caleb Azumah Nelson paints several vivid pictures, lives, and realities. Though the protagonist never reveals his name, you know him. He's your brother, cousin, neighbor, classmate, son, maybe he's you. Though the story's set in London, the story fits in any urban landscape where one realizes his body - his black body - isn't necessarily his own. But, despite his thoughts on race and masculinity, his soul finds an equal in a dancer and she creates his desire to love and to see - really see - who they both are as they figure this thing called life.

Though a novella, I read this story in four days because I did not want to rush, but rather savor, the words gifted to me.

It's honest, heartwarming, poetic, and jazzy. This story touches you and invites you to follow this young man's "coming of age" with caution and mutual affection.

5/5 Highly recommend.

Thanks to Netgalley for the chance to read this beautiful story via an advanced reading copy; although I would buy a copy for myself nevertheless.

4.5 stars. A STUNNING debut! This novel is written in second person, and as such gives the impression that you are in the mind of the narrator. The gorgeous prose tells not just a story, but the FEELINGS of the story. You don't really read this novel so much as FEEL the characters falling in love, only to be torn apart. And OH the heartbreak as violence results in fear, and the withdrawal into self.

"Two young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists - he a photographer, she a dancer - trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence.

At once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity, Open Water asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it."

Thanks to NetGalley for the free ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book was absolutely beautiful. The writing, the descriptions, the way the characters blossomed. I seriously love this book and can not wait until people get their hands on this book. Loved how the author's writing style reminds me of James Baldwin's writing. Reading this book it felt like a movie and I loved every last bit of it.

This is a beautiful poetic novella! Throughout this story you can feel the aching emotions of the protagonist’s love for his best friend mixed with his struggles to articulate how he feels throughout their relationship. The central thread is the love story between two young Black British people in London, yet from this narrative it also weaves in discussions of racial profiling, masculinity, and a celebration of music.

There is a persistent tension throughout the novel that I do not think is ever directly addressed as an issue of masculinity, perhaps intentionally, where the protagonist is holding in all of his emotions of love, grief and anger. It’s used as a way of coping to hide his vulnerability from others and himself in order to not feel pain. From reading what this character goes through you can understand why he feels this heaviness, and from his internal reflections he also knows why those feelings are there but is unable to actually feel them. However there are subtle moments where this character finds the freedom to express his emotions through listening to music. The writing in these sections is the hope that was needed to lift this novel and gives the reader, as well as the main character, an emotional release of what has been kept hidden.

The author is able to explore the discomfort of confronting emotion in such a raw and reflective approach using a second-person narration. As this is a debut from the author I’m excited to pick up any of their future works as this was an incredible debut!

Poetic meeting of two British black artists, narrated with a second-person perspective . As the story unfolds, the two friends fall in and out of love, touching on racial and identity themes. I'm not a fan of the second person narration, it seemed a bit forced and took away from the story.

Caleb Azumah Nelson's debut novel is at once lyrical, insightful and captures the vulnerability of being in love when black. Open Water opens with two people falling in love and for much of its first half, the book spends time exploring that feeling of love. But nothing is easy while being black, much less falling in love, so there's the brooding presence of racial politics simmering in the background - in the form of menacing cops and racial prejudices - even as the narrator is slowly falling in love. So when the trauma of being black in London percolates into the narrator's life, affecting his mental wellbeing, it threatens to destroy his love. Written entirely in second person, Nelson's ingeniously powerful prose gets into your head and lingers long after the book is finished. Excellent read.

Once I got used to the narration style, I found Open Water to be a beautiful and raw exploration of vulnerability. I saw some comparison to Normal People before diving in, and while I agree the novels similarly follow male protagonists grappling with trauma and depression, the comparison is otherwise derivative and does a great disservice to Caleb Azumah Nelson’s stunning debut. Rather, Open Water has much more in common with Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series, transporting the reader into Southeast London- smelling the rich spiced aroma from the Caribbean takeaway and feeling the dub bass line pulsing from the speakers at a weekend house party.

The love story, or rather, the falling in and out of love story focuses the narrative, but Open Water is about so much more than that. The protagonist also grapples with his second generation Ghanaian identity, details his harrowing encounters with police brutality and racial profiling, and shares his heart-wrenching experience of feeling “not okay” and being unsure what to do about it or who to burden with this heavy admission.

I am in awe of Nelson’s self-assured style and world building proess, it’s hard to believe this was a debut work. A must-read sure to stay with me for some time.

My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The closest I can equate the feeling I had when reading this book, this book I just thought I’d start but which refused to let go until the final page, was the same as when I watched Amanda Gorman at the inauguration. I had moved forward on my couch as if her words had connected us, pulling me in, giving buoyancy. Caleb Azumah Nelson did the same. His prose is like poetry, passages flowing and filling and aching to be said aloud. I found myself wiping tears away, my heart both bursting and breaking for these beautiful souls, discovering each other, their chrysalis of tentative intimacy, and for him the intersections of masculinity, and Black identity.

”How does one shake off desire? To give it a voice is to sow a seed, knowing that somehow, someway, it will grow. It is to admit and submit to something which is the outer limits of your understanding. But even if this seed grows, even if the body lives, breathes, flourishes, there is no guarantee of reciprocation. Or that you’ll ever see them again. Hence, the campaign for summer crushes.”
This book presses on the bruise of a Black mans survival, sprouting through broken asphalt. It’s George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Stephon Clark, Philando Castille, Tamir Rice and on and on and on. This is a beautiful heartbreaking debut, my first great book fo 2021, and I encourage you to open your heart and experience it.

I seldom read love stories. Not my kind. But I was curious to read this particular story. I am the kind of reader who enjoys taking a deep dive into relationships and this book is definitely on the top list of that genre. The story follows two young Black artists who meet and fall in love in London. He's a photographer, she's a dancer and studies in Dublin.

The author's writing style is impressive - he describes how our minds and bodies fall in love, how our senses are aroused, how we move differently, how we notice every single move of the loved one, her sighs, her pauses, the way she walks, talks. How we keep thinking about the other one constantly, how we miss each other. But if he's totally into her, she's not - she was in a relationship when they met and she's dealing with her own issues. Their stories had ups and downs and the narrator (the conscious of the young male?) suffers.

The story takes place during the Black Live Matters movement. They both know that their skin color is always the first thing people notice about them. Not their individuality. One night, he's mistaken for a thief and is arrested by the police. He's self conscious about being a young black male and he knows that wearing a hoodie is definitely seen as suspect, when, in fact, he's just cold. I immediately thought about Trayvon Martin. He's also grieving the death of his beloved grandmother, his family has left for Ghana and is pretty much on his own. His love story is what keeps him afloat.

This is maybe more a story about love rather than a love story, I should say. But if you have had the chance to fall in love, you will recognize in his nervousness, his impatience, his doubts and his yearnings the same feelings you have felt in the past. It's so well written, there are so many passages I have highlighted.

I want to thank Netgalley, the author Caleb Azumah Nelson and the publisher Penguin UK for a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

this is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read.
so much was happening. it was experimental. it was loving it. it was social critique.

how Black men are unable to fully let themselves express emotions due to racism.
yet he loved her so much but still couldn't be vulnerable.

i want this book in every form possible

The protagonists of Open Water are a pair of young, black people — the boy is a photographer, the girl a dancer — who meet one evening in a pub, and have been inseparable ever since. Friendship turns into love and is accompanied by plenty of contemporary music, cinema, literature and art, with the elements of London in the background.
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This novel is written in a very poetic language, however, it did not compensate for the fact that I found the plot completely out of my zone. It reminded me very much of Normal People, a book I am not a fan of as I invariably believe that good communication is the key to proper human relationships. In Normal People there were themes such as friendship/love and social class, in Open Water, there is a theme of friendship/love and racism, so I think fans of Normal People will also love Open Water. Unfortunately, I am not one of them.

This debut novel absolutely blew me away. I cannot wait to see future works by Caleb Azumah Nelson, I am such a fan!

This novel is set in Southeast London and follows the relationship of two young Black British people. While at the surface it is a love story, the true story expands over so many topics such as grief, trauma, systemic racism, vulnerability, and solace to name a few. I would not call this a light read, as it covers heavy topics but in the most lyrical way. This novel felt so deeply real that you could feel the emotions of the bloom and eventual wilt of the main characters’ relationship.

I absolutely adored the writing style, which was so beautifully lyrical - you can tell that the author was inspired by poetry in their writing style. The novel is in second person yet told from the point of view of the main male character, which was so unique and really grabbed my attention. Another interesting writing technique was the repetition of some phrases, with reminders interspersed throughout the novel of the importance of these mantras. The weaving of cultural references to music, film, literature, and art by Black artists dove you even further into the already culturally rich story. Finally, the metaphor of the title, Open Water, in describing the characters’ relationship is so unbelievably poetic.

This novel is out now in the UK and will be published in the US in a few months and I cannot wait to get my hands on a physical copy!
UK Pub date: February 4, 2021 by Viking Books UK, Penguin Books UK
US Pub date: April 13, 2021 by Grove Press, Black Cat, Grove Atlantic

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Grove Press, Black Cat for the gifted e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!