Open Water

This book was beautifully written, and the premise was powerful. However, the writing style didn’t fully click for me. I got to Chapter 10 and realized I wasn’t fully grasping it, so I started over and even bought the audiobook to help me through. I appreciated the emotion and depth, but overall, it just didn’t land for me the way I hoped. Still, I’m glad I gave it a chance.

Before I started the book, I read a lot of good reviews, and expected it to be the one that would finally be my first 5 star book of 2024.

However, I was soon disappointed. While writing an entire book in second person narrative sounds like a novel idea, it just did not click with me. The writing felt pretentious, whiny, and overly dramatic for the most part. The characters in the book feel less like characters, and more like sketches and outlines of some vague idea of a character. The second person narrative did not make me feel connected and engaged to the story or the thoughts of the narrator. Instead, it got tiring to read very quickly. At one point, I was dragging myself through the pages just to get something good out of the book by the end.

While I appreciate the theme and the message that the author was trying to convey, I believe it would have been better received if he had told it through the story of the characters. The message seems forced through repeatedly writing scenarios evoking visual imageries that add no value to the story, but just act as sympathy gainers.

‘you're not thinking. you're feeling.' absolutely lush writing and i loved the author's narration in the audiobook good LORD. also there was a part of their ~dynamic~ which resonated really strongly right now and hit me just the right amount. ugh, chef's kiss.  unfortunately the second person perspective was a struggle and a miss for me personally. 

Gosh, it was so tiresome reading this. It was over dramatic, and in some passages I didn't even know what was happening.
I really wanted to like this one cause it really has potential, but I don't think I like Azumah's writing style. It's a shame cause the plot REALLY has potential.

This book is beautiful, just poetry weaving its way through two souls and time. I had the inherent need of reading out loud sentences to strangers on the plane, subway and in small cafes - to remind them the beauty in the mundane observation of Caleb's prose. There's so much of this I can relate to, and so much that now lives with me.

“Every time you remember something, the memory weakens, as you're remembering the last recollection, rather than the memory itself. Nothing can remain intact. Still, it does not stop you wanting, does not stop you longing.”

I thought it was good writing until I realised the entire book sounds like the most pretentious, annoying, overly serious 20 year old arts student, the kind who can't get a haircut without finding all these “deep meanings”. As soon as I made that connection it was a bit of a slog.

Having said that, you can still find interesting things in a melodramatic 20 year old's diary. He has writing talent, some of the themes he touches on are interesting, and we can all admit to being overly dramatic sometimes.

Apparently this book is also about masculinity but it's not really - apart from the fact that everything is about everything if you squint hard enough.

“It's one thing to be looked at, and another to be seen.”

I am still struggling to wrap my head around the fact that a story that has less than 200 pages can manage to leave such an impactful feeling on me.

Open Water explores what it is to be young and black. The fear and anxieties that come with being black in a society that is consistently failing and hurting you, especially from the people who are sworn by law and duty to protect you.

There are so many themes that are covered in such a small book, such as racism, microaggressions police brutality and many more.

As white people, we will never understand what it feels like to fear for our safety whenever a police car pulls us over or passes us by. We will never understand the pain that racism and its repercussions have had and still have on the black community. I hate that stories such as these need to be told but I am glad that it's something that people can now find comfort in knowing they are not alone.

This was a beautiful read.

I absolutely loved how lyrical the writing of this book was and how the usage of the second person made the story feel more personal. It is a beautiful tribute to the the black - British experience and a compelling love story. Unfortunately despite the book being relatively short I found it really difficult to get through as the pacing was really slow.

If I could give it six stars, I would. This book is an absolute delight to read. Open Water is written in some of the most lyrical and poetic prose I've ever read; its words feel like music. I rarely do this, but I had to read most of this book aloud because the rhythm and lyricism demanded to be experienced that way. I underlined and tabbed so many amazing quotes and many profound ideas. I love it.

This book is about love, music, language, identity, joy, and the fears that unfortunately come with the black experience in many cities. It's subtle and brutal at the same time. This is a book that both softly sings to you and loudly screams about how much pain there is in love, in being, in being perceived, in being vulnerable, in being reduced to a body. I encourage you to listen to this book with the Open Water Spotify playlist nearby; the music will only enhance and help tell this delightful story.

I cannot recommend this highly enough. And I'm pausing my book-buying-ban to go buy Caleb's new book immediately!

4.5 beautifully written

Open water is Nelson's acclaimed debut novel. I was lucky to receive the ARC of his second book, which I absolutely loved, and, due to that, I think my expectations might have been a bit too high.

This is a great book, Nelson's lyrical prose is beautiful and I definitely recommend its reading. However, the story didn't touch me as much as I was expecting.

It is a beautiful love story but, underneath the beautiful, and sometimes purple writing, I've felt the characters weren't truly developed. Additionally, I think the important issues mentioned in the book were raised too further ahead in the story, and the ending left me feeling unfulfilled.

Despite the 3 stars, I absolutely recommend Nelson's books. I think he is brilliant and can't wait to read more from him and seeing him grow as a writer. This was a great debut!

This is a fearless debut, defying all conventions. Written in the second person where the main characters remain unnamed, the prose follows its own looping rhythm, often repeating words across sentences. It is a celebration of black excellence as Nelson invokes Dizzee Rascal, Kendrick Lamar, Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk, Zadie Smith, James Baldwin, Solange, Frank Ocean, Tribe Called Quest, and more. (Look for Caleb Azumah Nelson's Open Water Spotify playlist) This story, presented this way, would have never escaped the Iowa Writer's workshop.

It is a story on blackness and black masculinity that is vulnerable, emotional and remarkably chaste. It proclaims that you are more than the sum of your traumas but understands the consequences of being black. It is so intimate in its writing that I almost feel self-conscious, made a voyeur into a world I will never truly know, implicated by my own frame of reference and unconscious biases.

“You would soon learn that love made you worry, but it also made you beautiful”

This is a love story. A love story between two people, but also a love story to one's self. This genre isn't something I often read and whilst I wasn't a fan of the writing style, I still enjoyed it

It tells the difficulties that people face when venturing into the unmarked waters of love (please appreciate my pun xD). However, it also tells of the difficulties that many minorities face. To be scared to be yourself is not a pleasant life to live

Despite not liking the style as much as some other books I have read, I absolutely fell in love with the little motifs that were woven throughout the book. It made the read feel more connected and I enjoyed that. It was very cleverly implemented

I loved the vulnerability throughout the book, the author beautifully writing how “it's easier for you to hide in your own darkness, than to emerge cloaked in your own vulnerability. Not better, but easier. However, the longer you hold it in, the more likely you are to suffocate. At some point, you must breathe.”

This book has made a forever home in my heart because of its musicality and absolutely beautiful prose.

Beautiful prose and a deep story that involves grief, trauma, being Black in a predominantly white country, intimacy and love in its deepest state. What a beautiful start to 2023!

Caleb Azumah Nelson supremacy! African authors be penning.  Starting the year amazing. 

So so so so so powerful. If there is a book where words are literal art and power, this is it. I don't even know where to start. It is written so poetic that it flows beautifully off of each single page. Yet, it isn't poetry, it's still prose whilst reading.

The message conveyed hits hard. But is still brought in a beautiful way, even though the message is not.

I don't even have the words for it, it is literal magic.

Everyone needs to read this, literally everyone.

An emotional book on what it means to be a young black Londoner. It's short and moving.

Prose for readers who prefer poetry.

Este libro de 145 páginas es inmenso. La manera en que entrelaza el amor, el racismo y los miedos con una prosa casi poética es maravillosa.

This book covers important topics and is beautifully written, I just couldn't get into it. I think the second-person perspective threw me off, so it took me a while to finish despite being short.

“Imagine knowing that your wholeness could be split at any moment, so you live in pieces. You live broken, you live small, lest someone makes you smaller, lest someone break you. You are Black body, container, vessel, property. You are treated as such because property is easy to destroy and plunder”

This book was not what I expected at all. From the summary, I was expecting his love interest to play a much larger role than she ended up playing. I was therefore jarred by how focused it was on the hero. I kept expecting to learn more about her but I didn't, ultimately that distracted me and took away from my enjoyment of the book. If I had gone in with different expectations this might have been a 5-star read for me.

I loved this novella. A slowburn romance that starts as friendship, but grows with enforced separation, as our couple to be try to find their place in life. Simply told by the photographer narrator, and set in South London with stop and search and gang violence, Nelson uses the second person throughout - which really works. Fuller review on my blog: https://annabookbel.net/reading-the-sunday-times-young-writer-award-shortlist

Open Water (2021) is a beautifully written love story and exploration into race and identity. It is about finding yourself in a world where a person is only seen for what they look like. Taking place in the second-person (‘you'), Open Water navigates the struggles of a Black man crafting his own unique space within the collective Black body that homogenises him as he falls in love with another Black woman.   

Nelson's prose has the lyrical beauty of a poem and the narrative structure of a book. It really is beautifully written. It's also short, which I liked as sometimes author's drag their ideas for too long and the book stretches. Here, however, Open Water doesn't overstay its welcome. Short and concise, as it should be.   
I also really enjoyed the the second-person ‘you'. I found it suited the prose naturally, and allowed it flow elegantly to its full potential.  

Most importantly the characters are great and I found myself quite attached to them. 

However, I had hoped for more plot. Whilst the characters are great and I found myself quite attached to them, I unfortunately was much more engaged in the romance plot than the books greater themes. Here, the romance serves merely as a plot device for Nelson to explore his ideas surrounding the self, identity and the Black body. Whilst this is undoubtedly great for many, I found it a little jarring as we, the reader, are taken chapter-to-chapter from concrete, plot-centric, action that push the story forward to abstract, dream-like descriptions of thought and mood. Instead I would have preferred if Nelson had been able to weave the abstract and concrete together to form a more cohesive narrative.

Overall, I enjoyed this book enough to finish. It was beautifully written and I felt a genuine connection to the characters. However, a stronger plot line with a better weaving of abstract and concrete together rather than seperate would've lead to me feeling more attached to the story. Unfortunately, I don't see this book being particularly memorable going forward. 

That said, if plot is less important to you or you resonate strongly with the premise and its homages to Black art (especially music), then I think this could be a very special book for you. 

‘'You came here to speak of shame and its relation to desire. There should be no shame in openly saying, I want this. There should be no shame in not knowing what one wants.''

Love. What a simple, yet puzzling, complicated, frightening word. What beauty and terror are hidden in four letters. Love brings countless complications. One of the most intense comes when two best friends realise they have actually fallen in love with each other. He is a young man, a photographer. She is a free spirit, interested in writing and dance is her means to express herself. They meet, they collaborate, they become best friends. But it is clear that they fell in love at first sight. What happens when you find a soulmate but risk losing your true friend? As months go by, wandering in the buzzing metropolis of London, we watch two people who try to understand each other and themselves. And their story becomes our own.

‘'Language fails us, and sometimes our parents do, too. We all fail each other, sometimes small, sometimes big, but look, when we love we trust, and when we fail, we fracture that joint.''

What is in store for our couple? Both are Black British, both are artists. Both are navigating an absurd world that most of the times sees you as a ‘'Black'' body. The story is written in second-person narration which is my favourite literary technique when done properly. And here it is presented to absolute perfection. Exclusively seen through the eyes of the young man, we are guided into a story that examines love and relationships within a troubled and troubling society. A society that still succumbs to racism and discrimination and violence comes all too easily. This is far from a ‘'civilised'' time...

Art is an escape, a means to express your feelings and understand yourself. Before you let Anger take over you. Anger because the world is mad, mad to its rotten core. Before you are smothered by the overwhelming feeling that you are not ‘'good enough'', the constant need to apologise. Before you surrender to your fear of expressing your thoughts to the one you love. But if you retreat deeper and deeper into your shell, you'll get lost. And if you bedn too much, you will break. Your homeland, the land of your ancestors, the land of your beloved grandma is always on your mind. You need freedom, you need for fear to disappear, but the line between being cautious and being selfish is too thin.

In London and in Dublin. In our own home, in our own heart. That's where this outstanding novel takes us. Loving someone so much that it becomes frightening. Baring your soul is terrifying. Love is swimming in open water, against the current. Written with quiet beauty, tenderness and pain, this is the story of the love between two people, the story of a community where hatred and violence drive everyone apart. The story that shows that nothing has really changed. The story in which, one way or another, we can spot ourselves.

A remarkable debut. One of the finest books of the year.

‘'It is the wrong season to have a crush. Meeting someone on a summer's evening is like giving a dead flame new life. You are more likely to wander outside with this person for a reprieve from whatever sweatbox you are being housed in. You might find yourself accepting the offer of a cigarette, your eyes narrowing as the nicotine trickles your brain and you exhale into the stiff heat of a London night. You might look towards the end and realise he blue doesn't quite deepen during these months. In winter, you are content to scoop your ashes away and head home.''

Many thanks to Grove Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.