4.5 stars, rounded up.

“I was never really loving, never really inhabiting my days, because I saw them all as a prelude to something else. I would always have the sense, deep inside me, that there was another world beyond my own.”

I am always most excited to read novels from poets. I look forward to the strengths they inherently bring, the lyricism with which they can describe even the most monotonous of settings, the prose they can use to fill every crevice of a book. Seán Hewitt brings all this in spades to his debut, “Open, Heaven,” weaving a stunning narrative held together with delicious run-on sentences that beg to be cracked open, taken apart slowly.

At the core of it, Open, Heaven is about pain. The pain of growing up feeling different, feeling aloneness, feeling queerness that transcends the mortal form. In meeting and knowing Luke, James feels the exquisite pain of wanting something to the point of utter need, something that feels so necessary to your essence that it hurts you physically to not have it — even when you’re afforded moments so close that you can, quite literally, almost taste it. He moves through (but never beyond) the pain of unknowing, the dark muck of loving someone who can’t love you in quite the same way.

This novel is also a study in isolation, both emotional and physical. He has parents that yield a specific queer-adolescent pain: they don’t shun him for his otherness, but they don’t know how to understand what he’s going through or how to handle it. The fictional setting of Thornsmere gives us a small, relatively empty village that we rarely venture outside of. It provides a sparse backdrop that, while idyllic and beautiful, presents us with further scarcity of connection. Within this town, James is receiving so little of what he needs (intimacy, love, touch) that the smallest notions leave lasting impacts: a hand on his shoulder, a finger pressed into his palm, maintained eye contact.

I was briefly worried about the direction that Open, Heaven might have been going. Certain pieces could have spun off into a completely different genre of book, but instead I believe we were given a perfect ending. The anxiety in the build-up lends itself to the teenage tendency towards exclamation, to heightened emotions and what-ifs in the face of entirely new experiences.

Maybe I’m being melodramatic, but the final 8% of this book might have changed the trajectory of my life. It sent me further into the depths of the existential crisis that is the loss of childhood, through the lens of someone who both wants to move forward from the past, and is stuck in the thick, lethal tar pits of it. And so I have to ask — what is the mortality rate of melancholy? What is the prognosis for a person trapped by no disease, no scheming enemy, but time itself?

Movies and television shows to watch after you read this book: Call Me By Your Name (obviously), Moonlight, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Sex Education.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for sharing an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

<i>Open, Heaven</i> is a classic coming-of-age story. It follows a gay teenage boy as he grapples with masculinity, desire, and growing up while experiencing his first unrequited love and all of the angst and longing that come along with it.

It takes place over a year in the early 2000s but reads more like the 1980s or even earlier at times (the characters work as <i>milkmen</i>, read <i>magazines</i>, go to <i>discos</i>, walk 6 miles to school, etc.), although it lends it the timelessness of classic stories of boys growing up. There’s the rural setting and the sickly little sibling and the secret spot with a rope swing where all the teens hang out and drink—it’s perfectly by-the-books.

It's strength it in its voice which captures teenage intensity and handles with care the experience of falling in love for the first time. It would have been a life-changer for a high-school me (“Rather than feel angry [...] I only felt the arrival of the inevitable obliteration of my life, which I had been expecting for years” and “Sometimes when I saw [boys] my whole body would fill with a heavy anxiety, a dread that only beauty can bring out, because I was afraid of them and I was drawn to them with an instinctive, overwhelming need.” etc!!! Real!). It’s only because I tend to devour any bildungsroman (especially lgbt+ ones) that I wish this one had broken the mold a bit.

A novel slim in page count but large in heart. Unrequited love written as truthfully as I’ve ever read it. Anyone who has ever felt it, especially gay men, will see bits of themselves in this beautiful novel.

This is a book that brought me back to my youth. Growing up gay and not understanding what it all meantand living in a small town. This beautiful novel by poet Sean Hewitt captures the tender moments of what it like growing up and and having that fiest crush. The fear of does he know and if i say something what will happen? Will it be reciprocated or will anger ensue. To see how the writer carefully opens up the characters emotions without being trite and letting them be who they are with honestly even though it may not be how they truly feel until they get deeper into things. The feelings of loneliness, yearning, love, and heartache are all richly explored. After finishing the novel I wished that I had soemthing like to read when I was young. There were some great books out there but nothing like this. You don't have to be queer to love this book. You will fall in loved with these characters. I promise you that. Thank you to #netgalley and #knopf

Open, Heaven is the debut novel by Irish poet Sean Hewitt. Wonderfully lyrical, set in rural northern England, this lush queer coming-of-age is a tender exploration of the yearning and obsession of first love, rural isolation, and self-acceptance. Our main protagonist, James, is such a lonely character that my heart ached for him. I just wanted to hug him. The rural landscape is eloquently described, and I could feel myself being pulled along on the countryside walks. Open, Heaven is a heartbreaking but delightfully written book, and I look forward to reading more of Sean Hewitt's work.

4.5 rounded up.

*Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Daddy issues are powerful among men. (Probably women too, but I have no direct information about that.) People never love you the way you think they do, or should. Teenage is bloody awful to live through, and golden gorgeous once you know what the rest of life is.
Time runs faster backwards. The years–long, arduous, and uncertain when taken one by one–unspool quickly, turning liquid, so one summer becomes a shimmering light that, almost as soon as it appears in the mind, is subsumed into a dark winter, a relapse of blackness that flashes to reveal a face, a fireside, a snow-encrusted garden. And then the garden sends its snow upwards, into the sky, gathers back its fallen leaves, and blooms again in reverse.

This, my olds, is the way reading this book progresses. Imagery, metaphor, simile, all deployed in gorgeous swathes of lushness. Does anything *happen*? ask my Plotters. Does anyone get fucked? ask the Smutleys. What about character growth? wonder the odd (very odd, frankly) straights who accidentally stumble across things I write. (Howdy, both of y'all!)

If you are reading this story with An Agenda (eg, what happens to Daddy, does the kid get his cherry popped), put it down and read something not by a poet. One of those Seán Hewitt decidedly is. I am not a poetry reader. Let go of your pearls, that's far from the first time I've said it. Then I read a line like, "It was like walking through a folk song that afternoon—the blackbirds and the thrushes, the sweetness if the flowers, the boy who I loved, and who might even love me, waiting for me between the trees," and I get all swoony and wander around smiling (scared my roommate to death, he thought I was having another stroke) and vow to read more poetry.

I'm better now.

So we're clear: You're here for the writing, not the first-love-coming-of-age story. It is lovely writing indeed. I honestly never once thought about how rural north-of-England boys in the Aughties found out how absolutely mind-blowingly amazing it is to fall in love with another boy. I'm closer to knowing that now, and whaddaya know it's a lot like the ways city boys in Seventies Texas did. Hence the evergreenness of that plot. It's never going to be all that dissimilar to other times and places. Plotters, you've read it before, and nothing unusual happens here. Very slowly. Described in words and images designed to make your tear ducts open like stopcocks on a clepsydra. Until the ending, when it's more like the outflow channels through the Three Gorges Dam.

As to why, you'll find out.

What makes this journey down a well-worn cart track, jolts and ruts and huge potholes of Emotional Discovery℠ and all, worth my while is that I'm really there with young James. A poet who understands the power of leaving something unsaid, unheard, and all there in the spaces between the words—the boys—can make an old cynical great-grandpa think about how it happened, how it felt, who to hide from and how to cover it up. Things that hurt, that warped me in the moment, that felt like having my skin ripped off and salted vinegar poured on the wounds, are visible now in a gentler light, more importantly a context that makes them Meaningful Developments towards adulthood.

Is that good? Dunno, but it makes me feel good and likely will you, as well.

4.25 stars

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!!

This was great. It falls into the sad gay boy reflecting on his childhood trope that I love so much. Very beautifully written and I ate it up so quickly. Solid book! Definitely recommend!!

This one hurt!! The writing was absolutely beautiful. I added everything else this author has wrote to my TBR about 50% through the book. This is what CMBYN wishes it was. I do wish there was a little more of a concrete ending regarding James family at the end. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

i was moved!

sean hewitt just does a brilliant job of dealing with those two fleeting, coveted things: time, as he on one hand suspends thornmere in eternity with tendrils of lyrical prose and on the other emphasizes its melancholic passage, and desire, as he deconstructs the particular imagination and longing and delusion that is required by the act of loving a boy. and really much of the book’s draw is in hewitt’s writing style, its propulsive vividity and insistent reflectiveness, since the narrative itself is simple and straightforward. the novel’s ultimate message about a love like this—not quite requited yet intensely formative—is a familiar one, but it does nicely painting the figure of a yearner so much so that i don’t mind the cliché. but i think what made this so much more than the typical coming-of-age romance (or lack thereof) was its tender portrayal of village and family, of james’s juggling of familial love with the electricity of his desire, of being anchored to a place and people despite wanting more than anything for passion to freewheel you away. which is what makes james’s ultimate return to thornmere so much more poignant—that he has been carried away, but not in the way he hoped. sad yearners rejoice in being seen!

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC of this beautiful little gem. Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt was among my most anticipated books of 2025. What's not to be excited about: a queer coming of age tale, set in rural Ireland, written by a poet? Yes, please. And I'm so thrilled (and relieved) to say it didn't disappoint! This is a beautiful little story about James, a queer teenager who, while clear about his sexuality, struggles with the small-town reaction and his family's growing isolation as a result of his coming out.

Early in the story, James is roped into a job helping deliver milk. James is on the job when, one fateful morning, he catches sight of Luke, an older boy who has been dumped on his aunt and uncle's farm. James is immediately attracted to handsome, broody, scruffy and disheveled Luke. Luke, for his part, exudes trouble and recklessness, but the reality is, he's a lonely boy who craves affirmation and love from his father.

This is a brief novel - just over 200 pages - and I fear if I say too much more, I won't leave enough for readers to discover. I want everyone to read this book. It's a rare treat.

A quiet, tender coming-of-age story about first love, longing, and figuring out who you are. The writing is absolutely gorgeous, you can tell Hewitt is a poet, and the atmosphere is dreamy and melancholy.

Not a lot happens plot-wise, it’s more about mood, emotion & vibes. Beautiful, bittersweet, and quietly devastating. I really enjoyed it!

This book was beautiful. A true testament to the absolute overwhelming experience of growing up- the themes of shame regarding coming into one’s sexuality were so poignant. “I think part of me was afraid that it would betray me in front of Luke, that it had been watching me as I had been watching it.” Hewitt masterfully encapsulates the deep pit of shame and fear of the new landscape of adolescence. The representation of a young, queer man in a small town and his inner turmoil between friends, family, and the one he loves is captured in magnetic prose. Thank you so much to NetGalley for the advanced reader copy of this!!

It's the early 2000s, and life is trudging on in a small village in the north of England. Between the isolation of the town and James's family's difficulties and his own sexuality—which is by and large tolerated, but not really accepted—James is feeling pretty isolated himself. He dreams of connection, of meeting another boy like him. And then a new boy, one who doesn't know James or how he doesn't quite fit into town, arrives, and things start to change.

"Our summer should have seemed open-ended. Almost every day was hot, with endless blue skies and the deep green of woods and meadows, but I knew that, before the autumn came around again, Luke would be gone." (loc. 2201*)

File this one under slow-moving, character-driven, beautiful language. James spends so much of his life daydreaming—about boys, mostly, or about men; I've never particularly wanted to be in a teenaged boy's head, but this does rather take us there. But there's quite a bit else going on in his life, including a younger brother whose health is uncertain and a more general desire for connection. As much as James is a ball of unfortunate teenage hormones, a lot of what he dreams of is much less about sex than it is about wanting someone to be close with, someone to touch, in a way that he can't fully articulate. Everything is constantly on the cusp, about to change but not always in ways that James can predict.

I was a bit nervous about the direction the book was taking, but the ending sold this for me—3.5 stars, I think, rounded up. No spoilers, but the plot very much builds toward that end of summer, and there are a number of ways the plot could go. The level of restraint bumped this up for me. One to read when you're in the mood for something introspective and dreamy.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

When a poet writes a novel, the language used is often mesmerizing. That’s definitely the case here; thanks to Knopf and NetGalley for the advance copy of this!

“I had thought it would be painful to be reminded, but what I felt instead was a sort of collapse in time, or a possibility: a curious but strong sense that my old life might still exist there, that if I went back I might find those people, that summer, all going on there still, unharmed and unchanged.“

In 2002, James is 16. He’s gay, which makes him an object of curiosity in his small English town. His parents don’t quite know how to treat him, but it saddens them that James is a loner. What they don’t understand is just how much he wants to belong and how much he wants to find someone just like him.

And then Luke arrives, the nephew of James’ parents’ friends. Luke has come to stay at his aunt and uncle’s farm just outside James’ village because he has no one else to care for him—his mother has moved to Paris to be with another man, and his father is in jail. Luke has a reputation for being a bit of trouble, a bit out of control, and James is immediately smitten.

The story is told 20 years later. James is an adult and is looking at property that is for sale—the farm where Luke lived that year. James looks back on this not-quite-relationship that had such an impact on his life. It’s amazing how much our interactions with a person—particularly for a short time—can change us.

This was a beautifully told coming-of-age novel. James isn’t entirely sympathetic but his struggles, his longing felt very familiar to me. I’m amazed that this is a debut novel and can’t wait to see what comes next for Seán Hewitt.

The book will publish 4/15/2025.

A poignant tale of coming of age and unrequited love. James is reflecting on the summer he was 16 and met Luke-and his world changed. James has only just realized he is gay, something not to be discussed in his small farming community. Luke has been sent to stay with relatives for the summer and he captures James' imagination and heart. There's a lot of longing (which will be familiar to everyone, regardless of orientation). I found myself caring about both of these teens (as well as about Eddie, James' brother). Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. It's one that will make you sigh.

I liked this novel but I didn’t love it. The sexual tension between James and Luke was very palpable and heartbreaking. I think the writing style wasn’t my cup of tea. The prose was too long-winded. I didn’t feel strong emotions and the character development felt lacking and contrived.

Thank you so much to Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this incredible book early!

Atmospheric, heart-wrenching, and poignant, this book will surely be one that I push on other people constantly. The lyrical writing immediately immersed me in the story and only enhanced the feeling that you were experiencing the exact same things as the characters. A story of seeking belonging and falling in love for the first time, I couldn't help but be utterly moved by James and Luke. Experiencing first love is a beautiful thing, but often there are forces at work that can either drive a wedge between two people, or bring them closer together. For this book, the boys' histories--both familial and personal--and the remote village setting, with its community and culture, influence their decision-making and their feelings. I loved this book for its portrait of complex characters and their emotions, the excitement and fear of first love, and the desire to find unconditional love.

For fans of Douglas Stuart and Ocean Vuong, this book cannot be missed.

Open, Heaven explores the poignant story of unrequited first love through James, a man reflecting on his past and his obsessive feelings for Luke, a rebellious boy from his youth. The novel delves into the complexities of desire capturing the bittersweet experience of one-sided affection and the idealization of unattainable love. It is beautifully written and deeply emotional.

Thank you Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Seán Hewitt for allowing me to read this lovely story before its publication date in exchange for an honest review. 4.5 rounded up.

A stunning queer coming-of-age novel, that I genuinely had to be put down several times as it felt too realistic and personal. James, a sixteen-year-old, narrates a journey of yearning and the intense love you can feel for a single person, who frankly, might not even want you. There were so many moments in this book where James was anticipating touch and narrating the feelings that overwhelmed him, and it felt so real, and raw, and personal. The entire time I was reading it felt like I was watching a high-school version of myself, and I just wanted to hug him. Every queer man will find so much to resonate with within this novel.

If you, like me, are a fan of Lie With Me, Swimming in the Dark, or Call Me By Your Name, you will absolutely fall in love with the prose that jumps off the page and fills your entire being with melancholy and nostalgia. I cannot recommend this novel enough. In fact, I am already making my friends pre-order it as it comes this month!

A remarkable debut novel from the author of the stunning memoir ‘All Down Darkness Wide’.
It follows James as he explores his sexuality with other boy—Luke— for a summer. I can’t believe I was able to read this in advance, it was such an honor. James and Luke are SO three-dimensional and fleshed out it’s honestly scary. James’ reflection on his sexuality and desires were so honest and brutal that it made me flinch; Hewitt doesn’t care if he makes you uncomfortable with his descriptions, because it’s James’ real feelings. The prose was majestic and oozes with expertise, it flows like butter.
A desolate and eloquent novel about longing and desires.
It felt close to the classic ‘Call Me By Your Name’ by André Aciman because of its intense longing and want.