Thank you NetGalley for the ARC
So I’m this book we follow Stephen over the course of three summers from London to Ghana.
In this book we see Stephen partying with his friends, we see Stephen trying to pursue his friend Del, we see him going to university and struggling with his mental health, we see Stephen going back home because he couldn’t take it anymore, we see Stephen working at a restaurant and learning to cook, we see Stephen experiencing grief, we see Stephen going to Ghana and exploring his roots, we see Stephen falling in love with music again and healing his relationship with his father.
From the beginning I felt transported to Stephen’s world and I was there with him feeling every emotion, listening to every song and dancing along.
The most beautiful thing was seeing Stephen healing his relationship with his father, talking about the pressure from being an immigrant and expectations that parents make for their kids and we end up finding out that they had a lot in common in their journey.
This was a beautiful story filled with love, brotherhood, dancing, family dynamics and amazing music.
Caleb Azumah Nelson is one of my favorite authors right now and I can’t wait to read his next work

Thank you to Grove Atlantic for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

With Small Worlds, I knew I would have an even greater experience based on my reading of Open Water. Caleb writes in a beautiful style that is pleasant to the heart. He has a knack for putting words together in ways that inspire beautiful and vivid imaginations.

This novel is about friendship, love, community, life and belonging. It was an honor to read about Stephen's journey since I realized how similar some of the things he had experienced and I had been through were. Like in Open Water, Caleb's love for music was explored throughout the novel, and as a music lover, I found it to be quite rewarding. The romance aspect of this book is something i would love to read over and over.

I’m highly going to recommend this book if you’re into contemporary fiction.

Note: This requires your undivided attention and patience due to the lyrical and musical writing.

Caleb Azumah Nelson does not disappoint! Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read the e-arc!

Nelson's lyrical writing is unique and stands out from many books I've read. The way music is written throughout the novel is so beautifully written, and plays a huge factor in how it shapes our characters' lives. Our main character Stephen is faced with many challenges and life lessons from his late teens to early twenties that many people can relate to. Also coming to the realities of the real world is not an easy transition once you leave secondary/ high school. The realities set in and you start to learn more about yourself, and who you want to be, finding yourself through culture while coming from two completely different worlds. Trying to navigate familial, friendships, and romantic relationships is difficult as you get older and learn more about yourself. As a child of immigrants, I found myself in Stephen's character and facing the realities of growing up and going through many changes. I found my parents and grandparents in Stephen's parents and immediate family members.

There was not a moment I wanted to put Small Worlds down and if I'm being completely honest I wouldn't change anything about the book! Highly recommend it to everyone!

At its core, this is a story about belonging... about community - created, found, and lost. Where Nelson's debut was a poetic composition filled with lyrical language that ebbed and flowed and played your emotions like a ballad, Small Worlds reflects the Jazz musicians referenced in its pages. Complex build up, incomplete thought trails, smoothness juxtaposed with frenetic chaos. It still broke my heart, just in a different way.

All this said, there were a lot of plot similarities between the two works that I could not unsee which ultimately led me to have a less revelatory experience with this second novel. I still HIGHLY recommend this to folks looking for some contemporary literary fiction that grapples with complex ideas.

Ultimately I feel like this is more of a 3.5 for me and likely would have been a 4 if I had not read the two novels so close together

Perfect! I want to give this 10 stars!
Just as good as Open Waters, maybe even better! The prose is beautiful and the music theme continues, which makes this coming of age story contemporary and engaging for all generations.

Stephen is a first generation Londoner, whose parents migrated from Ghana and settled in South-East LondonThrough his story we feel the love, the disappointments, the grief and most of all the hope of his parents’ migration and their own love story and how that has influenced Stephen’s own journey, growing up in London.

Having worked in SE London, Azumah Nelson’s descriptions of Peckham brought back many vivid memories for me, but also gave me insights I was blind to as an outsider.

I didn’t want this book to end! I look forward to more brilliant writing from Azumah Nelson.

The best thing about this book is its lush prose and musicality. What a privilege it was to read it and follow Stephen growth and emotional journey, to feel you have been given access to his mind.

<i>“I’ve only know myself in song, in the space between the sounds we make to capture our quiet”</i>

Reading this felt like a gift because I’ve felt so many of Stephen feelings before, and I’ve been where he has been and would never be able to put it into words. Stephen might only know himself in song, but Caleb certainly knows in words.

<i>“I didn’t feel like myself there. I didn’t like this me, who was insecure, and rarely at ease; who felt like he was living in a city with no community to lean on, no one to just spend some time with; who not knowing how to dismantle his loneliness, cocooned, retreated.”

”I want him to be more open, to allow me the space to say, I feel broken, and I’m slowly taking myself apart, so I might build myself up once more</i>

This was a very emotional book about family, community, love, friendship, grief, and life. It also touches racism and the importance of our past and roots to better understand ourselves.
This book will be out July 18 and I could not recommend it enough.

<i>Thank you Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.</i>

TW – Depression, loneliness, death of a parent

This is the first book I've read written by Mr. Azumah Nelson and I apologize in advance for the structure of my review. I'll go with what moved me in reading this book and shy away from the grammar, tone and style of writing which all but left me feeling nostalgic and reminded of the dreams that die when you are far from home, in a land that's not your own, trying to see another sunrise and hoping you get to enjoy a couple of sunsets.

Stephen loves, lives and breathes music and his family and friends know this, and when he gets to join the university and go for Business, somewhere along the lines of playing it safe, he finds himself going back to his first love which is music and from there- it's a collective downpour, a shattering of ambition, control, expectations from everywhere.
Even though, he's born in London to Ghanian immigrant parents, the culture, customs of his parents and their expectations surround him. From the very beginning, the brothers-Ray and Stephen, have a strained relationship with their Father, and throughout the book this strain and how it unravels when Stephen decides to stand firm in his choices, their connection was memorable.

I enjoy listening to music and while reading this book I was taken by how even the writing weaves notes and beats into the way the characters interact. I wanted to read this book and got to do so courtesy of an approval from the Publisher and Netgalley and would recommend it to a specific reader who knows what it feels like to burn so bright that the light almost consumes you.

First things first: the writing in Small Worlds is totally lush. It is musical in both style and form, and I loved the use of repeated motifs, whether they are short phrases ('Black crowns', 'an easy two-step'), longer ones (most often about cooking), or entire paragraphs repeated with minor variations, like when Stephen's parents separately recount an event that they shared.

Music permeates the whole book, accompanying the characters, shaping their lives - specific songs and artists as well as the musicality of the streets they live on and the community they are a part of.

The themes are coming-of-age, the British-Ghanaian diaspora, family, community, love, grief - and what it means to build a life. Just trivial stuff, you know, nothing big.

Many people are coming to this with expectations from Open Water, which seem to have been more than met. I never quite got round to Open Water, but I definitely will now.

My thanks to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for the ARC.

Azumah Nelson’s debut (Open Waters) was one of my favorite books of the year, so I was really looking forward to reading his sophomore novel. Stephen just graduated high school in London and, like so many young adults, is questioning his next steps as influenced by his parents (Ghanaian immigrants), his older brother, and classmates. While the prose continues to be outstanding, the storytelling unnecessarily jumps forward so as to lack the requisite detail for emotional impact. All the plot and character elements have been established only to wither on the vine without being developed.

This book was a great read about friendship, love, grief, growing up, or maybe just life in general. The prose was absolutely beautiful. It is captivating and made me feel like I was witnissing everything that was happening to the main character. It was like you as the reader are part of the story.

The way that music is portrayed in this book in phenomenal. The way this author writes about music and actually makes me feel like I know the music. I can feel the music without having to listen to it. It is like you are actually listening to the sungs.

Most importantly, I think that no matter who you are, you can find a part of this book and relate to it. Everyone had doubts about the way their life is heading, or had to deal with grief, or in general had to grow up. I can guarantee you that I had several moment is this book where I thought something along the line of: "hey, I have felt this as well".

The only thing I just did not enjoy in this book was the way the characters were described and build. It took so long before I felt like I really knew who these characters were and what their personalities were like.

Like Open Water, Small Worlds isn't just a book, just a novel. It's a playlist, a poem, a song. It's a work of art, a place you want to disappear into. For anyone worried that Small Worlds won't be as good as Open Water, let me reassure you. It's just as good. Caleb Azumah Nelson is so incredibly talented that reading his writing feels like looking directly into the sun.

Small Worlds follows Stephen over three consecutive summers, somehow they manage to all feel like formative years of his life, whilst also remaining relatable. He puts language to the feeling that summer will last forever, and the knowledge that it won’t. The desire to go out and see the world, mirrored by the desire to stay home and listen to records on repeat. These nuances of life are what Azumah Nelson tackles so beautifully, so delicately, in a way that makes the reader feel like they are wrapped in their own small world within his writing.
In the first summer, Stephen finally gathers the courage to put action to his feelings for Del, a girl he has been friends with forever, who he knows down to “the way the light holds her neck.” In the second summer, Stephen has dropped out of university after struggling being away from home and studying a subject that holds no interest for him. He is working at a restaurant, learning how to cook and feels better than his time at university, but his father is ashamed and kicks him out of his family home. Stephen moves in with a friend and again battles some of the sadness he felt whilst away at university. Towards the end of part two, he meets Del again and together they play music and Stephen listens to her DJ. The final summer felt the most emotional to me. Stephen visits Ghana and tries to rebuild his relationship with his father, coping with loss and love intertwining over the final few months of the novel.

Music weaves through Small Worlds, and it’s impossible to read without looking up the artists and albums and playing them in the background. Stephen plays the trumpet and loves records and Del is a musician too, DJing on different stages in different places. Music is in everything they do, and dance is the solution to all of their problems. The novel reads like a symphony, each part, each summer, a new track or a new album. Each character adds a new note to the melody, creating a symphony that draws you in.

I adored the exploration of the father and son relationship in the final part. I've never read anything before that so expertly unpacks how it is to be a son, a father, to live up to expectations. The emotional intelligence depicted made me highlight lines, made me want to commit them to memory. Stephen goes through a depressed period whilst at university and struggles to explain this to those around him, yet Azumah Nelson describes the feelings so intimately to the reader, allowing us a glimpse into Stephen’s mind.

An expertly crafted novel about love, family, music and food that doesn't shy away from harder topics like racism, migration and loss.

While Open Water is beautiful, the unnamed protagonist shocked me. It took me a couple of tries before I completely got lost in Azumah Nelson’s writing. Small Worlds on the other hand immediately captivated me from the first page. Stephen felt like a familiar figure in my life. Azumah Nelson captures the second generation Ghanaian experience in the most captivating light. He writes in such an effortless way that even me who normally opts for storytelling over prose, can’t help but love. I’ll never not marvel at the way he shines a soft light on the small world of a man who is trying. In life, in love, in just simply existing. He is trying to be a fully formed human, in touch with his feelings and those around him and I appreciate that more than anything. This is not always an easy thing to articulate but Azumah Nelson does it with ease. It’s a nice reminder that men like Stephen truly do exist.

I'm gonna start out strong and say that reading Open Water convinced me that Caleb Azumah Nelson is one of the greatest writers alive. Small Worlds cemented that.

The book, set across three summers, follows Stephen as he finds himself faced with big life changes. This is a story about growing pains, family, love, friendship, dance and music.

When I say music, I don't mean just the literal playlist (love the Open Water one), or the way Nelson can translate into text the music his characters are listening to or creating, but the actual lyricism of his prose. It's breathtaking and melodic, repeats the theme in just the right places and made me choke up multiple times throughout the book. I've read some prose that thinks itself musical, but nothing like this. If writing is a craft this is a master at work.

Stephen's world was such a joy to be immersed into. The drifting apart and finding the way back, the journey from London to Ghana and back again, the parallels, oh my God, the parallels. I had to put my kindle down multiple times because I was too emotional. I don't remember the last time that happened. The father storyline broke me into a million pieces and built me back up. This was, hands down, my favorite read of the year. It had me making a pinterest board for the first time in my life.

I truly have no complaints. The characters, the pacing, the story, the music, the writing, the ending. The couple typos that inevitably popped up due to it being an advanced copy just made the story feel more intimate overall. I don't know how it could get better but I'll be there to check when this book comes out, and to supplement this review with a million quotes and excerpts. Thank you for reading and go preorder this book.