“There’s rhythm happening, everywhere; all of us like instruments, making our own music.”

After loving Open Water, I was so excited for Small Worlds- but slightly worried it would disappoint after such an amazing debut. I can confirm that it absolutely did not disappoint.

Set over three summers, Stephen shares his life with us and we are pulled into his world.

By the time I finished this book, tears were streaming down my face. Caleb Azumah Nelson has such a talent for writing in such a poetic yet raw way, that grabs your attention and makes you completely invested in the story.

To anyone who gave this a low rating, I’m certain they didn’t read chapter 50, which is some of the most beautiful writing I’ve ever read.

This book is so much more than a story. This is a love letter to London, to Ghana, to music, to food, to family, to love, to joy. It is also a note on heartbreak, grief, and what it really means to be be a young black man.

Another easy five stars, I’m convinced this man could write a menu and I’d cry over it.

He has done it again! Caleb Azumah Nelson is shaping up to be a favourite author. The way he captures the immigrant struggle is absolutely perfect. The way he captures family dynamics and one’s search for their own identity is perfect. The backdrop of music and London is perfect. Everything is perfect. This is a beautiful book that I will treasure… same as his first book.

Stunning!

Thank you NetGalley for an e-arc.

Simply stunning. I adored Open Water and was hoping that I would enjoy Caleb Azumah Nelson’s second novel as much, but I needn’t have worried, it is incredible. The rhythm of the writing coupled with the importance of dance and music made reading this an absolute joy and one that I could not put down at all. Dealing with themes such as past trauma, injustices, finding your path in life, family, friends we consider family and most importantly love, this book was so easy to get in to and set at a great pace. It was emotional and heartbreakingly beautiful in the best possible way.
Thank you to NetGalley and Viking for the advanced reading copy.

3.5 stars rounded up

There's absolutely no doubt that Caleb Azumah Nelson knows how to write: just like Open Water, Small Worlds is written absolutely beautifully. Nevertheless, I nearly didn't finish this one around 30%, because the story just didn't pull me in enough. I'm still glad that I did - the plot may have been slow at times but the story felt like an important one to tell.

Overall, I recommend this to anyone who prefers beautifully described well-fleshed out characters and depth over exhilarating plot twists.

Once again, I must apologise for the brevity of this review but life is still rather difficult at the moment.

I loved Caleb Azumah Nelson’s Open Water so was very happy to receive an eARC of Small Worlds and it did not disappoint. It is beautifully written, poetic, rhythmic, like the music and dancing which is so important in Stephen’s life. The use of repetition, phrases like choruses coming back over and over again keep the reader dancing with him.

As the now 61 year old child of an English mother and an immigrant father I am sadly familiar with many of the issues covered in this book and it is heartbreaking to know things will probably never change.

Thank you to NetGalley and Viking books for the opportunity to review this book.

In February 2021 Caleb Azumah Nelson released his debut novel Open Water. I remember seeing rave reviews and knowing I had to get my hands on it asap. And I did - March 2021. My reviews starts with "This book! All the stars, all the hearts!". If people ever ask me what my favourite genre of books is, I say literary fiction. Then people ask what that it, and it's quite hard to describe, but Open Water became my go to for an explanation. The words, the phrasing, the whole passages that you can just read over and over. It's more than just a story. Not that there's anything wrong with just a story - I love other fiction too - but it's this type that blows me away and takes reading to a different place for me.

So, fast forward to 2023 and I heard he has a new book coming out in May. I immediately start stalking @netgalley until it appears - I request and was approved. I was not dissapointed. Small Worlds has all the beauty of Open Water - the culture, the music, the language, the insights - goodness me he is one young man very in touch with his emotions and how to express them. It differs in storyline, but is still very character led - if you like a fast-paced plot driven book this one is not for you. It is about relationships - brothers, father-son, mother-son, and lovers. It's about the Small Worlds you make with the people you love, or the ones you see others have made. The little moments, the homes, the love. Honestly, goosebumps.

If you are a lover of words, emotions, beauty in the small things, then you will love this one. If you loved Open Water, I believe you will also love Small Worlds. Thank you @netgalley - so grateful for the early read. I do need physical copies of both for my shelves now though. 🙂

Caleb Azumah Nelson’s debut novel, Open Water, was an impressive piece of writing that I found it easy to relate to because the protagonist, like the author, is a photographer and significant portions of the book discuss visual art (along with writing). I say I could relate to it, but given that it explored what it means to be a Black British man and I am a white British man, there was a lot more than relating going on because it was giving me a new perspective on things.

Small Worlds, Nelson’s second novel, has several similarities with his first. There is still a lot to admire in the writing which is poetic and intense making heavy use of repetition of phrases (although I have to acknowledge I did find this a bit distracting because I started to feel I needed to count up how many times phrases recurred, something very easy - too easy - to do when you are reading an ebook). Both books are about being a Black British man based in London. Both books are about a love affair.

But this new book isn’t about a photographer. It’s about a musician, Stephen, and we follow him through three summers with perhaps the main focus being Stephen’s developing relationship with Del.

There is a LOT of music in this book. If the author were to create a Spotify list to go with the novel, I think it would take several times longer to listen to it than it does to read the book. But, even though music has been a key part of my life from an early age, this music was all new to me with the exception of mention of some older, more mainstream songs that hit the charts back when I was growing up. I’d like to listen to that Spotify list if it ever surfaces because I imagine it would be a powerful set of songs. And dancing is also key to this book (the opening phrase <i>”Since the one thing that can solve most of our problems is dancing…”</i> is revisited at least a dozen times).

One of the things I highlighted in one of my distracted moments was the times when remembering and forgetting were paired in phrases. Also, I remembered that a key phrase for me in Open Water was about an “honest meeting”, a meeting where words weren’t needed because of the openness between the people involved. Here, there is a big focus on being “open”, on seeking for emotional depth in relationships.

All that being said, I didn’t find this book as compelling as Open Water. As I’ve already said, I found myself being distracted by repeating phrases and the very fact of that distraction indicates that I wasn’t fully engaged in the book: in a different context I would have noticed the repetition but I wouldn’t have felt the desire to count it. And the main story arc is fairly conventional and unsurprising which means the novel really stands or falls on the writing, which I simultaneously managed to admire and be slightly disengaged by.

At the end of the book, I feel that I would definitely like to read more novels by this author, but I would recommend his debut above this one.

After all the hype surrounding Open Water, I was so excited to get early access to this book which will come out in May.

The story is told from the perspective of a young adult called Stephen, and takes place over the three summers after he graduates from college. The writing is absolutely stunning, and is lyrical, poetic and very captivating. A continuous theme throughout the book is music & dancing, and the ability it gives people to express themselves and ignite connection, and the author did an incredible job of describing this experiential phenomenon - something that is often so hard to describe and capture in writing.

Stephen is the son of a couple who moved from Ghana to London when they were young adults, and had to fight so hard to build a life in a place where they faced so many hardships. I thought that this offered a really vibrant and at times stirring perspective into life in London as part of a community that is constantly trying to be silenced, shrunk, and ignored by those who have power.

At first, the book is extremely character-led, and I wasn’t sure where it was going to go in terms of plot. But the book just got better and better and by the end I was completely invested in the characters.

Definitely pick up a copy when it comes out, this will be the perfect spring & summer read and not only is it super enjoyable to read, but it’s an important book.

Simply spectacular. A tale of sons and fathers and music and food and love and laughter. This is a story about family and finding oneself. Recommended reading for all men in my opinion. As a British-Ghanaian as well, I so appreciated everything about this. The descriptions were so vivid, I could feel myself at home in Accra and in Cape Coast and in Peckham and everywhere. My own small world. Spectacular. A triumph. Better than Open Water and that’s saying a lot. I recommend with everything in me.

There's a quote from The History Boys: 'The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things that you thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out and taken yours'.

This is what reading Caleb Azumah Nelson is like for me. Every page, I come across phrasing so gorgeous that I have to slow down and read it again.

Small Worlds follows Stephen through three summers of his life, exploring his relationships, his joys and his growth along the way. London plays a big role as the backdrop for most of the novel and as a South East Londoner myself, I found a lot of joy in following Stephen around our city, which can build you and break you in one breath.

The pacing is smooth and slow. This book isn't one to choose if you're in the mood for 'edge of your seat'. It's one to choose when you need to mellow a bit in pain and beauty. I'll be recommending Small Worlds to everyone and I'm so excited that it's been optioned for a TV show too!

Some of my favourite quotes:
'She reaches across for my hand, pulling it to each scar, tracing each one so I might know better the making of her'.

'Funny what we remember, what palaces we build to house these fragments'.

"I'm trying to tell you what it means to be in the eye of a moshpit: a small, beautiful world in the midst of chaos, free, amongst flailing limbs and half shouted lyrics"

When I read Open Water last year, I was blown away. So when Small World's was announced I was, of course, very excited but didn't think I would love it as much as Open Water. Well, guess what reader? I was wrong - I somehow loved this even more!

I am in awe of Caleb Azumah Nelson's writing. He approaches characters, stories, and themes with such lyrical beauty that is absorbing yet so easy to read. The characters and stories bloom so naturally, it feels like you genuinely get to know them. At times I forgot I was reading a work of fiction.

Small Worlds is set over the course of three summers. Stephen is navigating the vast worlds of love, loss, family, and self and the small worlds we build for ourselves, how we create space to live, love, and be free.

He struggles with loss throughout, through death of a loved one but also how we lose ourselves, the people we thought we would be, and the loss felt in the gaps that grow in our relationships.

Stephen finds solace, joy, and hope in music and dancing. This in particular really resonated with me. Music was always my place of comfort when I was a teenager, going to a gig and being surrounded by people singing along, dancing - my own small world where I felt safe and at home.

Caleb approaches difficult, sensitive topics with such care and passion. Showing how communities and families can fracture but find strength in love and the small worlds, and space they create to live in those worlds, with the things that bring them together at the centre, the things that feel like home, especially when home is so far away.

Small Worlds was an incredibly moving, beautiful novel, one I’ll revisit again and again. I can't wait see it brought to life on the screen, and I live in anticipation of Caleb Azumah Nelson's next offering!

Thank you to NetGalley and Viking for the eARC, I can't wait to get my hands on the physical copy

After reading open water I couldn’t wait for this one and I wasn’t disappointed. The writing is poetic and beautiful and it gives the book a really good pace.

I hadn’t loved Nelson’s first novel, but this one felt better paced and less navel-gazing. I enjoyed the plot, the writing and the characters, all of which felt fuller and better realised. Well worth giving it a go.

Caleb Azumah Nelson’s debut novel “Open Water” was a deserved winner of the last ever Costa Award for Debut Novels in 2021. It was both a love story albeit one written in a second person which fitted an idea of observation and distancing, and an exploration of what it means to be a Black British male via essayists, painters, authors and (particularly) photographers, as well as a discussion of favourite music and films. Overall, it was one that I found transparent but with depth (must like the title would suggest).

This is his much anticipated second novel – and it shares much in common with his first, but with perhaps one main distinction.

In terms of commonality, the two books share: a relatively familiar almost clichéd love story at heart; the modern London setting; the exploration of Black British maleness – particularly from a British-Ghanian background and the way in which that identity is also shaped by police violence; some beautifully elegant poetic/lyrical writing (which stays for me just the right side of being portentous and over-written); the extensive use of repetition of phrases and imagery.

The main distinction is in the art elements – as this second novel is very much based around music and dancing, perhaps to be honest a little too much for my tastes.

The book is set over three consecutive summers. The (more conventional) first party narrator is Stephen and we follow him over each year.

Stephen is 17 at the opening of the novel, a part time jazz musician, and living with his parents and his older brother Raymond in a family unit which at first seems tight knit (an opening scene starts in a church worship session (as an aside one of the admirable aspects of this novel is its open treatment of Ghanian-British Christian culture) which breaks into open dancing, with Stephen and Raymond sharing a “joyous, brotherly laugh” as they watch their parents (whose faith is a lot more certain then their two boys) exchange an embrace “I gaze at my parents, and see that a world can be two people, occupying a space where they don’t have to explain. Where they can feel beautiful. Where they might feel free”, before moving on to a party where Stephen meets his almost life long friend Adeline (Del)

In the first Summer 2010, the main narrative tension starts with Stephen and Del, taking tentative steps to turn their friendship into an actual relationship. Meanwhile both are waiting anxiously to see if they will win a music scholarship to University and when Stephen fails to do so, he opts instead for a Business Studies degree at Nottingham – almost immediately feeling isolated and depressed there (in what is I think a sensitive examination of men’s mental health issues). An apparent rejection by Del (who has started another relationship at her University) resurfaces suppressed memories of an incident many years before when Stephen and Ray’s father announced he was leaving home with the children and when they protested, abandoned them on the pavement saying “I don’t need you too either” and leads Stephen to something of a crisis.

In 2011, we find Stephen, having abandoned his degree, working in a restaurant and training as a chef. But his abandonment of a degree and a steady job, causes a rupture with his father (who is fond of recounting the way at the same age he had to make a living for himself after travelling from Ghana to the UK to be with Stephen and Ray’s mother) and he is thrown out of the family house. Ray meanwhile has become a father, and Del too it turns out has quit her Music Degree, figuring she can make more money DJ-ing which is where Stephen encounters her again and the two restart their relationship. The section ends with the death of Stephen’s mother.

In 2012, Stephen travels for the first time to Ghana (a trip he had meant to take with his mother) and while there finds out more about his father’s identity and love of music – and from that is finally able to ask his father more about what happened to him. The book then briefly switches to his father’s viewpoint and we learn more about what he encountered in England and in particular his involvement in protests in Brixton following the death/murder of Wayne Douglas in police custody in 1995(*) before Stephen and he reach more of an understanding, which in turn allows Stephen to grasp more of his identity.

As I mentioned the book is dominated by music (I am sure the author will produce a Spotify list) with extensive references to artists and songs – almost none of which I have to say I am familiar with.

Dancing is also key to the novel – in fact the crucial recurring theme of the text is the opening words “Since the one thing that can solve most of our problems is dancing” – which I think reappears another 15 times or so in the text and which rather distanced me from it (as dancing is something I neither do nor understand).

Other recurring formulations include “little two-steps”, touching heads “two black crowns”, the phrase “Godlike, even”, the concept of leaving things behind, the need to choose what to take and what to let fall away when migrating or moving, and of course appropriately “small world”s (which recurs in excess of 25 times) – which repeating phrases themselves add to the musicality of the text.

Overall, I think this will appeal to most fans of “Open Water” – although the musical and dance concentration meant it appealed less to me than the author’s debut.

When I heard Caleb Azumah Nelson was releasing a second novel I was a little apprehensive about whether it could be as impressive as Open Water but somehow I loved Small Worlds even more!

Somehow Caleb manages to create the perfect blend of authentic characters; flaws and all, with lyrical, poetic language which makes for an immersive and throughly enjoyable reading experience! Couldn't fault this book and very excited to see what else is to come from this author in the future.

This was a beautifully written novel, Nelson has a distinct writing style that you would know without knowing it is him writing. The poetic yet simple prose feels so effortless. There were some similarities between this and Open Water; the focus on music, the vivid depiction of the London setting and the focus on close relationships. I loved the emphasis on the father son relationship and the brotherly relationship. I also loved the Ghanaian setting as well. Would highly recommend this. Any fans of Open Water will adore this!

“Small Worlds” is an incredibly moving book about family, love, friendship, identity, music, and community. It’s about the differences between living and being alive. This book is an incredibly intimate read. Caleb Azumah Nelson has a magical way with words that is unmatched by any other author. I always feel incredibly privileged to read his work.

His lyrical prose really carries this book, the metaphors and analogies stick with you long after you finish the final page. The depth and complexity of his characters make you realise what a profound understanding of humanity he has, and makes the book all the more special.

“Small Worlds” is one of those rare, magical books where I knew from the first page that I had discovered a new favourite. Nelson’s work speaks to me on such a deep level. Watching the main character, Stephen, build and break his own “small worlds” with the other characters, and come to terms with what it means to come from two very different places and feel slightly on the outskirts of both was a beautiful experience. The use of music throughout the novel further served to carry the message and unite the various characters.

“Small Worlds” is such a beautiful and necessary book. I will be returning to it many times and I urge you to read it.

Beautiful lyrical writing and prose. I loved this authors first novel, but for me this one just didn't live up to my expectations. Not for me this one sorry!

Music is central to the plot of Small Worlds, the sophomore novel by Caleb Azumah Nelson. Music moves our protagonist, Stephen, through the three summers of his life after school, through failed attempts at higher education, at jobs, at romance and at reconciliation. Music also cascades off the page with prose so lyrical that it’s breathtaking, building and breaking, fading away and roaring back again. There’s pure magic in how Nelson writes.

Much like his debut, Open Water, Nelson focuses on the lives of black youth in London - their triumphs and their struggles - and explores the small worlds that Stephen creates through the relationships in his life, as well as the identity struggles of being the child of immigrants, of having a feet in two worlds and neither feeling entirely like home.

While I loved the relatability of his relationship with Del, it was the exploration and evolution of Stephen’s tenuous father-son relationship in the latter third of the book that really moved me.

I am once again under the spell of the incredible writing of Caleb Azumah Nelson. The words are so accurate, it resonates a lot with me. Her way of talking about family, love, finding your place, being part of a community, etc. He inspires me enormously, he is one of my biggest literary favorites in recent years, this author. It is a privilege to be able to read these words and that he shares this vulnerability with us, I feel lucky to discover them. There are really sentences that come out of the book to get inside me, it's a very strange and restorative feeling at the same time. I have the impression of rediscovering a lot of my experience and things that make sense. The number of tears shed...

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.

Thanks to Penguin General UK - Fig Tree, Hamish Hamilton, Viking, Penguin Life, Penguin Business and Netgalley for provinding me with this Book!