I had such high expectations for this second novel. Open Water (Nelson’s first) was my absolute favourite book of 2021, but this one kind of felt like a rerun of the same book, with a less absorbing plot. It was still a wonderful read, but maybe I was a little underwhelmed because it didn’t feel like a new experience, like it did with the first one.

What makes Nelson stand out as an author is his unique and poetic way of writing. Every paragraph feels like it could be spoken-word. You can almost hear him speaking when you read. Each page is full of eye-widening metaphors (“I walk ahead, towards the shoreline, and the sand makes souvenirs of my motion.”) and expertly-placed repetition that makes his words feel like a familiar friend.

The story follows Stephen, a young man growing up in London who is about to finish school and start university: a pivotal point in his life when it comes to choosing a future that will make his African parents proud. He has to navigate a lot of changes over 3 years, being away from his best friend for the first time, living in a new city, becoming an uncle, travelling to Ghana to learn more about his family history and, most importantly, trying to mend broken family bonds.

There is so much beautiful writing in this book, particularly in the way Nelson describes the food and music Stephen loves. Music is definitely the biggest theme throughout, showing us how it can seal memories, fill us with nostalgia, and build bonds with people we love the most. I actually searched Spotify for an accompanying playlist but it doesn’t exist yet - hopefully soon!

I’ll continue to recommend Open Water to new readers, rather than this one.

Favourite quote:

“This is the reason I have always turned to sound; how a croon can signal heartbreak or a yell can speak to our elation, or a groan might speak our grief. Music, rhythm, undeniable. Sound helps us get closer to what we feel.”

Thank you to NetGalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review. Small Worlds will be available to read from May 11th, 2023.

I could not connect with this story
I felt alien which is fine but the story did not invite me in
I could not read more than 2 chapters

Possibly a cultural challenge for me or where I am in the world or where I am at emotionally

Thank you to the publishers for access to this upcoming release!

Open Water, the authors debut novel, was one of my favourite reads last year so I was so excited to be able to read their new book! And I think I liked it even more. Nelson is such a talented writer, his words are so poetic and vivid and gorgeous. This book is so utterly beautiful. I never wanted it to end. I cried a lot by the end, it’s a very emotional and powerful book about family, love, self-discovery, music, food, life. It’s unforgettable and I can’t wait for everyone to read it.

I loved Caleb Azumah Nelson's first novel 'Open Water', but 'Small Worlds' reaches a new level. This is a stunningly lyrical novel about family, love, migration, faith, pain and joy. The small worlds in the title are the spaces characters create where they can be themselves in the midst of "a city doing its best to disappear you"; "a world can be two people, occupying a space where we don't have to explain. Where we can feel beautiful. Where we might feel free."

This coming-of-age novel unfolds over the summers of 2010, 2011 and 2012 and begins in Peckham as the narrator, Stephen, is leaving school. He is a jazz trumpeter and is hoping for a scholarship to study music, along with his (girl)friend Del. At the same time, he must carry the expectations of his parents who moved to London from Ghana when they were Stephen's age, particularly his father who "expects tangible measures of progress." Over the following three summers, we follow Stephen around London and to Ghana as he experiences disappointment, heartbreak and grief but also learns more about himself and where he came from, particularly as he reconnects with his father and discovers his story "of movement, migration, burden".

It is almost impossible to convey how beautiful the writing is. Caleb Azumah Nelson writes so lovingly about Black British experiences, in particular music ("I've only known myself in song, between notes, in the place where language won't suffice but the drums might, might speak for us, might speak for what is in our hearts"), dance ("since the one thing that can solve most of our problems is dancing"), and food and drink ("food is not just sustenance but memory, nostalgia; a way to quell longing, a way to build new foundations".) Many of these phrases become refrains, repeated and refracted throughout the novel, so that even though this novel is rooted in traumatic experiences of racial violence from slavery to the London riots, it is suffused with a radiant joy, fragile but resilient. In particular, it contains some of the most incredible descriptions of making music I have ever read.

Both epic and intimate, this book is a masterpiece which deserves the very highest accolades. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC to review.

I read Small Worlds shortly after reading Open Water (by the same author), so I was a little disappointed to see that Caleb Azumah Nelson's second book wasn't written in second person narrative after Open Water executed it so perfectly, but that disappointment was short-lived.

Small Worlds captures the reader with a beautifully orchestrated story of community, friendship, family, love and loss, and delivers these themes with a quiet magnitude that I now associate with Nelson's work. The lyrical prose is poetic, leaving me with countless lines and passages that made me put the book down for a moment just to appreciate what I'd just read, and there is always such attention to detail with sentence structuring and rhythm, that this is the kind of novel I want someone to read aloud to me all day and all night. Even without attaching meaning, the texture of Nelson's writing feels like a love story.

The plot of this story is well fleshed out and developed, covering an expanse of time from Stephen's teenage years to early adulthood, without rushing the pacing or sacrificing the focus and intensity of smaller scenes that I love in character-focused stories. Small Worlds also delves deep into the Black British experience, covering topics from police brutality, racism, the immigrant experience, and how being Black intersects with grief, gentrification, and depression. While it's not something I have individually had to face, as a white reader, I know how much it has resonated with other readers.

This book will be published in the UK in May, and I'm already impatient to get myself a hard copy. I couldn't recommend this book enough.

Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I didn’t think any book could top Open Water but Caleb Azumah Nelson has absolutely knocked it out the park with his second novel, Small Worlds.

Thank you so much @vikingbooksuk and @caleba_nelson for a gifted proof copy of this book.

A love letter to music and dancing, the book explores important themes such as grief, race, identity, complicated familial relations and belonging set over three summers in London and Ghana in Stephen’s life.

Caleb became an auto-buy author for me instantly after reading his first novel Open Water back in 2021. As soon as Small Worlds was announced, I’ve thought about it constantly and it was everything I wanted it to be and more.

There was so much in this book that millions of people can relate to and, as ever with Caleb’s writing, it was lyrical and beautiful and really pulled you into the story and made you feel all his character’s emotions. One thing that I really love about Caleb’s writing is how he focuses on the details. It is those details which make you forget you’re reading and feel like you’re hearing a story from an old friend. Even just specifying London tube stations and the journey taken to get to different places was perfect. It felt like you were in the story.

The love story felt so natural and so realistic, moving from place to place, coming back to each other and missing each other when it’s not the right time. It felt so relatable, and is one of my favourite kinds of love stories to read about. Not everything is simple, and when it’s complicated it can be because of these miscommunications which everyone does. No one is perfect and we all sometimes fall out with people and had rifts because of a misunderstanding.

The way Stephen was so excited about going to university and then finding out it wasn’t what he thought it was going to be will be so relatable to so many people. The way his depression and the way it is embedded in loneliness and feeling like you don’t belong was described was perfectly, respectfully and cautiously done.

I honestly didn’t think anything could live up to my expectations after Open Water, but how Small Worlds is somehow even better absolutely astounds me. Caleb is definitely an author to watch and I can’t wait to see what he does next.

Please check trigger warnings - it includes racism, grief, death in childbirth and disconnected identity. ❤️

Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson is a poignant, lyrical novel exploring race and culture, grief and loss, love and friendship, music and rhythm, and about navigating a world of uncertainty.

I never doubted that this book would be beautiful after loving Open Water, but Small Worlds absolutely blew me away. I fall for beautiful writing time and time again because it evokes so much emotion and really helps me to feel like I’m part of the book.

This book made me cry, laugh, smile and gasp and whilst I couldn’t personally relate to the race and culture aspects of the book, every other event or feeling portrayed was relatable - the grief of losing a parent, the dropping out of university, the feeling behind in life 💛

I will continue to read anything and everything published by Caleb because I have never come across an author that writes quite as beautifully as he.

Having issues downloading to my kindle and unable to. give feedback but don't want to give a negative review.

Nelson is a phenomenal writer - engaging, powerful and eloquent.
There is nothing more that I could have asked for from this book.

Small Worlds tells Stephen’s story through sweltering heat, food, love, loss and music.

I loved Stephen as a character and just felt so so emotionally attached to him throughout the story. I really think that’s part of the reason why I fell so head over heels for this.

Caleb Azumah Nelson has done it again with another beautiful, lyrical, raw novel. An incredibly honest love story that depicts all the twists and turns of a blossoming romance between two friends as they grow together and apart as they go to university.

I loved how Stephen’s story and culture was told through music and food, which really made the book a multi sensory experience, you feel like you could be in the kitchen or at the rave alongside him.

Racism, prejudice and racial profiling by UK police are also an important part of this book. And how this was mirrored alongside Stephen and his family’s story was done incredibly well and evoked true feelings of anger and sadness.

It’s really hard to describe Small Worlds in a review. The writing and story is just so gorgeous I don’t think I can do it justice. If you enjoyed Open Water or are completely new to this author this is a must read.

Thank you to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC of this book.

Obviously Open Water was a smash and following it has got to have been a daunting task but I guess not when you’re as good at this as Caleb Azumah Nelson is.

Stephen is finishing up with school and is looking towards what he wants to do next, which is music. Music has always been a balm for him; something he can create a home in, with and without the people he loves. The story morphs from his leaving school to his relationship with his best friend Del and leads us to his strained relationship with his father. This last act is the one I found the most moving, as Stephen seems to learn anew who his father is.

It goes without saying the prose is gorgeous, the repetition in words & phrases is extremely thoughtful and woven so carefully throughout the story. Loved it and loved taking time with it.

Just beautiful. I loved this book so much; the rhythm in the writing, the dynamic and complex relationships, the music, the sticky London Summer heat. Caleb Azumah Nelson is a one-in-a-million writer & I really hope this book does as well as his first. Thanks so much for letting me read!

Caleb’s writing is like being wrapped within a soft blanket, the warmth of your mothers voice enveloping you as she welcomes you back home, like the gentle caress of a lover.

Small Worlds overwhelmed me with this immense sense of self no other book has ever made me feel. Not even 10 chapters in, I’d already felt the urge to cry several times: this is how well Caleb encompasses human emotion, how beautifully he describes and explores the experience of those living in the diaspora as well as the Black British experience & culture. Caleb expertly describes the feelings I could never find the words to explain.

This book is so special. Stephen means the world to me. His internal struggles, his grief, his love for the motherland and Peckham, his desires and dreams, the way he viewed his friends and local community- they were all things I heavily related to and perhaps that is why this was such an emotional read for me. The story and the characters deeply resonated with me because this is a story I know so well: it is the story of my neighbours, the story of my friends, the story of my family, it’s my story.


So many important topics/themes were discussed and explored in the book: the immigrant experience, police brutality and racism, grief, community, depression etc. I’m going to write a more comprehensive review on my medium- so I won’t discuss my thoughts on all the topics & themes, but I thought all of them were handled exceptionally well.

In particular, I feel like Caleb perfectly illustrated Black men’s fears surrounding their finances and not being able to provide for themselves/the family. Eric isn’t supportive of Stephen’s creative dreams, but I feel like later in the novel when Eric is relaying his story to his son, we understand why. Eric himself had dreams and the world crushed those dreams. Eric had to struggle for years on end to get where he is today- to become financially secure, and he doesn’t want that for his children. I think this is such a prevalent narrative in the diaspora/African households: our parents moved abroad from our home countries for a better life and when they had children, they never wanted them to struggle how they struggled, so when we express our hopes/dreams and they fall outside of their expectations of what they believe constitutes a “successful” life e.g. not going to university, choosing non-traditional job roles etc, they panic. They fear for us because they know what it is to struggle, to be unable to make ends meet, they know how financial burdens can crush your spirit. But because of this fear, a lot of them also forget what it is to dream, to have aspirations beyond your wildest imagination and though I do not think they do it intentionally, because of this fear, the unconsciously makes us small. I feel like Caleb illustrated this expertly.


I always find myself awed by an authors ability to successfully create such multi-faceted, three-dimensional & well fleshed out characters in a novel under 300 pages. This applied not only to Stephen- our main character, but to Ray, Del, Eric and Joy. I feel like in many books, side characters only serve to aid the plot or the main characters character development. But this isn’t the case in Small Worlds. Each character had their own dreams, aspirations, fears and doubts, as well as their own tiny plot lines which enabled them to grow as people. I really appreciated this.


Caleb’s lyrical prose is absolutely gorgeous. You can tell he spends a lot of time structuring his sentences; thinking of the most effective way to put forward the emotions he’s trying to convey. I often have a problem with flowery prose- usually because I feel this sort of prose prioritises beautifying language as opposed to using words to actually relay anything of substance, but despite Caleb’s prose being stunning, no words are ever wasted. His writing never fails to touch the deepest parts of my soul.


Like I said earlier, I plan to write a much further in-depth review on my medium, but in conclusion, Small Worlds is brilliant and a book I foresee myself thinking about for a very long time.

I just want to start out by saying that Caleb Azumah Nelson’s use of language is a masterclass in writing prose. I genuinely have never come across another author who has such a way with words, and I will continue to eat up anything Nelson writes; even if he was to publish his grocery list, I’m sure it would be breathtaking.

Although I was immediately in awe of the writing style, it did take me a little while to get into this book and to really connect to the characters. My favourite aspect of this novel is the familial relationships, particularly between our protagonist, Stephen, and his father, Eric. They have a very strained relationship throughout the novel, which culminates in Stephen distancing himself from his father. However, I loved the way in which they find common ground in their grief toward the end of the book, and how Stephen grows to understand his father through his relationship with Stephen’s mother, Joy. I think the depictions of familiar love and grief are spectacular, and really pulled on my heartstrings.

There were a few things which affected my reading experience and my overall rating of the book. The first is that I couldn’t help but compare this novel to Nelson’s debut, ‘Open Water’, which I read and absolutely adored last year. It’s unfair of me to compare the two, as they are completely different books and focus on different types of relationship, but I feel that nothing would ever live up to the way I felt about ‘Open Water’, and the pressure I placed on this novel to compete with it probably hindered my enjoyment a little. I feel it is important to say that this is definitely NOT a flaw of ‘Small Worlds’ and it should not be seen as a criticism of the book; this is merely my own issue when it comes to comparing books and having exceedingly high expectations.

Another slight issue I had with the novel was the repetition of key words and phrases throughout the book. This is simply a stylistic choice that I wasn’t particularly a fan of, but I do understand why it was used. For me, it felt a little bit unnatural and interrupted the flow of the novel, as I kept recalling when I had first read those words of phrases. It also felt as if the moral of the book was being emphasised a little too much, instead of coming across effortlessly throughout the book.

With all that being said, I cannot emphasise enough just how incredibly Caleb Azumah Nelson’s writing is and I highly highly recommend picking up both of his novels!

A beautifully written coming of age story of love and loss, I expected nothing less after Calebs brilliant debut Open Water.

I adored this book.

Following Stephen, we experience the highs and lows of trying to figure out how to live our lives. Engaging with themes such as love, grief and familial conflict, Caleb Azumah Nelson perfectly encapsulated the essence of growing up and navigating not only your relationships with others, but also your relationship with yourself.

Throughout the novel, art forms are consistently represented as perfectly bringing everyone together. Specifically dance and music, regardless of what we may be going through, in that moment, we are simply people surrendering ourselves to the moment along with everyone else. We can find ourselves a community anywhere we are through our love for art.

Nelson exquisitely depicts that at its core, art is self-expression in its truest form.

If you have the opportunity, do not miss out on reading this beautifully moving novel.

Caleb Azumah Nelson follows up his astonishing debut with this emotionally intense, coming of age, piece of art and poetry that paints a picture of 3 summers of black Ghanian Londoner, Stephen, residing in London. This covers a period of life that tends to be a turbulent period of life for anyone as they try to find their feet in their sense of identity, family, faith, music, relationships, and the outside world. However, for Stephen, it is heightened by the trauma and experiences of being a black man in a hostile and brutal world, emphasising the inner need for small worlds. For Stephen the joy and beauty of dancing and music is beyond compare, in the resonances and answers to his problematic life that it provides, its rhythms, whether dancing alone or with others. The connections, colour and vibrancy it offers, it shines a light on who you are, until that is, it fails to do so. What happens when family and home is taken away? Stephen has to stumble his way through the nature of love in all its forms, his relationship with his father, parental expectations, face losses, travel to Ghana, and returns to London in search of a place he can unconditionally grow, be himself and be free.

A powerfully profound, spellbinding and moving piece of writing, littered with music and songs, a much needed and welcome addition to literature that gives glimpses, perspectives and the realities of being a black man and British, the cultural and familial challenges, community and the pressures of race and policing in London. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

Another amazing book from Caleb Azumah Nelson! Almost poetic, every word perfectly chosen. Captures London summers and teenage love so well, in addition to the big themes of family and migration. Love, love, love.

The best of Caleb's work, in my opinion, this book is a tender account of the type of love that consumes a lifetime and leaves you with what ifs.

If you love a deep love story with beautiful prose, then this is for you.

THANKS: Received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I mean of course I had no doubt I would enjoy this book since Open Water was one of my favourite books of 2022, thank you so much to viking books and Netgalley for the E-ARC. I took my sweet time reading this wonderfully stunning piece of writing because I mean who wouldn't take a step back after reading some of the passages written in this book. Theres so many ongoing themes going on, so in the beginning it did take me some time to get into it but once I was hooked, I was hooked! Caleb's work touches on topics of identity, shame, struggle and injustice but also the community he is surrounded by and his love of music and dancing. I personally couldn't connect with the musical aspects but I still think this is a book everyone needs to read, I'm looking forward to it being adapted for TV.

4 stars from me!