I featured my review as part of a monthly reading wrap up on my YouTube channel and have featured it in multiple videos in addition to this https://youtu.be/5cQd2SrU0Cw

Beautiful and harrowing, Derek Owusu weaves his narrative in such a contemporary poetic way that in audiobook format it very much comes across as though it was *meant* to be spoken word. It flows so artistically—Kobna Holdbrook-Smith was the prefect choice for narrator with his restrained but emotive style and the gorgeous timbre of his voice. The skill and talent shown in Owusu’s use of language was exceptional, but the deftness of the story telling easily matched it; the unfolding of narrative, a leaf at a time, felt natural, but, on hindsight, so carefully considered. I’m am incredibly impressed. I’ll look out for future work from Derek Owusu and would ardently recommend That Reminds Me to anyone interested in literary fiction.

Raw, honest, breathtaking and a new, completely stunning, brilliant poetic language. My breath was taken away. This is at times an extremely difficult read, but the pain comes with beauty, and vice versa.

'From outside, the estate pulsed - the surging energy of the set has become the heart of the city - with splintered thinking, one half focused on embellishing their boys 16, 32, 64, long ting, while listening for the next drop, and the other half searching through the mental scattering of lyrics penned on A5 schoolbooks pages that will flow well on the beat creeping in.'
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'This is the story of K. K is sent into care before a year marks his birth. He grows up in fields and woods, and he is happy, he thinks. When K is eleven, the city reclaims him. He returns to an unknown mother and a part-time father, trading the fields for flats and a community that is alien to him. Slowly, he finds friends. Eventually, he finds love. He learns how to navigate the city. But as he grows, he begins to realise that he needs more than the city can provide. He is a man made of pieces. Pieces that are slowly breaking apart.'
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Each section of the narrative is preceeded by a direct address to Anansi, the Akan trickster storyteller who, for me, symbolises the enduring resillience of the diaspora, in that he is central to African, Caribbean and Black American folklore. The allusions to Anansi are apt: Owusu is a skilled storyteller whose writing moves seamlessly between lyrical prose and stark recall and this is enhanced by a brilliant audio narration. He carefully manipulates the reader's reception of information - some of the most harrowing moments are cloaked within offhand asides while more vibrant emphatic language is lent to nostalgic reminiscence on 'the last Nick of the show's theme tune', a '140 bpm bird-head bop,' 'Limewire' and a 'pocket smelling of Deep Heat'.
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At 117 pages, this is a short read, but not a quick one. The novel spans K's journey from childhood to adulthood and he is a character I ended up feeling fiercely protective of. K's story is told through a series of prose poems which poignantly unfold his experiences. Aside from the more traumatic episodes, a moment that stands out to me is K's recollection of the 2010 riots - 'the London ember gaining air' - and how he traces a link between the protests following the murder of Mark Duncan, the shooting of Cherry Groce and the death of Cynthia Jarrett - all a result of Metropolitan police violence. I'm gripped by what Black British writers are currently doing in terms of literary archival work and personal memoir. THAT REMINDS ME - both the paperback and the audiobook - has found a permanent place on my bookshelf.

I should have read this in print - not that the audio wasn’t excellent, but it deserved my complete attention.

This is the story-in-poems of K, a black boy growing up in Britain, from foster care, through school and into adulthood, where a bipolar diagnosis and mental health issues become increasingly important. As a content warning, the ending resources list gives links to The Samaritans and Self Harm UK.

This is a powerful book - it’s beautifully observed and covers so much ground in one young man’s life. The format makes it quite unique- to me it reads as individual poems, rather than a novel-in-verse, but they build to create such a strong picture of K’s life. The author has described his story as 20% autobiographical, 80% fiction.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #MerkyBooks for an advance readers copy of this - I’m glad to have read it, and will look out the print version.

That Reminds Me

Poetic, poignant and powerful. The language, rhythm and cadences carry this dark and unflinching work.

I first read this book as a physical book and personally I think the audio book is far more powerful, more beautiful and allows for the writing to be fully appreciated.
A debut novel and winner of the 2020 Desmond Elliot Prize, I’m really struggling to see why this was left off the Booker Prize List. It’s brilliant.

A poetic telling of a young man of African parents growing up in London in little vignettes. He expresses how it is for him, how it is to be different, how it is to be the same.

This was an impactful and brave read, particularly the parts about mental health which really stood out to me. I loved the honest and raw storytelling and will be looking out for more of his work. Additionally, the Audiobook narrator sounded perfect

I don't think it will be possible to ever forget K. He grew up and thrived in spite up society, his family and his upbringing. He became the sum of his surrounding parts. He was endearing, inquisitive, he loved life. He was accepting and optimistic. He was kind and generous. He suffered and despaired. He tried to progress, succeed despite all of the obstacles that stood in his way. He will stay with me for a long time to come.

Dazzling technique makes this book stunning on the style level as Owusu weaves between poetry and prose, using assonance, rhythm, cadence and rhyme with a masterful ease that feels natural and inevitable at the same time as it oozes a kind of spontaneity and authenticity.

It's extremely hard to pull off this kind of poetic prose and I've personally found it try-hard and often meaningless when used by [author:Daisy Johnson|14247059], [author:Jessica Andrews|19734705], [author:Emma Glass|16775684] amongst others - which makes it all the more impressive to see it done so beautifully in what is a first novel. This intuitive feeling for the flexibility, pliancy and resonance of language is rare, and thrilling when it is made to work as is the case here. Owusu is as much a musician of words as a writer and it's well worth reading this aloud or listening to the audiobook (beautifully and feelingly read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith).

Of course, words alone don't necessarily make a strong book but Owusu has something to say as well: about loneliness and race, about masculinity and identity, about self-harm and addiction, about suicide and mental illness - and how to find a way out of that spiral towards regeneration and some kind of faith beyond despair.

It's especially positive to see this book challenging our cultural myths about Black masculinity as this embraces vulnerability and defencelessness with grace and integrity. In that sense, this reminded me of the intimacy of [book:Open Water|53414230] by [author:Caleb Azumah Nelson|20293142], with the linguistic facility of [author:Kei Miller|707250].

At just 100 pages or so with plenty of white space, this proves that so much can be said not necessarily with lots of words but with precisely the right words placed faultlessly.