A tender exploration of love, grief, and identity—poetic and intimate. Fans of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous or Call Me by Your Name will soon fall for Seán Hewitt.

Open, Heaven by Sean Hewitt is an instant classic. Emotional and intense and does not disappoint. Will recommend to friends!

Open, Heaven isn’t exactly a “new story,” but it’s a beautifully crafted and deeply evocative version of a familiar one—the experience of being a queer teen, filled with longing and confusion. I think it’s especially relevant now, as a new generation grows up in a world where that kind of isolation and yearning is becoming less common. A kind of touch-stone of the gay experience pre-social media, marriage equality, etc. Set in the early 2000s, the book perfectly captures what it was like to explore your sexuality during a time when being gay meant being a social outcast, feeling fear and isolation, and hoping for something more—a safe space, mutual desire, a love that’s reciprocated on equal measures.

The characters felt real to me right from the start, and Hewitt’s writing is stunning. I found myself highlighting so many passages—they were just that beautiful. True poetry in novel form. If Call Me by Your Name was stripped of its problematic age gap and written with more care and insight, Open, Heaven would be its elegant, thoughtful counterpart, written through the lens of adult hindsight.

I was a little worried going in that it might read like a YA novel (I should’ve trusted Hewitt’s skill), but the narrator is an adult looking back on his past, and the writing reflects that maturity. It was done so well.

Seán Hewitt has officially become a must-buy author for me, after his stellar memoir, his exceptional poetry, and now with this striking debut. Thank you to Knopf & NetGalley for the Advanced copy. Trust me I’ve already pre-ordered the signed hardback!

What a gorgeous and tender story. I've never read any of Hewitt's poetry, but considering how wildly human and deeply relatable this novel, that's gonna change. I'm not one for coming-of-age stories, but Open, Heaven really has left an impact on me. There are echoes of ever classics of the queer coming-of-age space, but the gorgeous prose is what makes this stand out. I will be recommending a lot next year.

Although a bit of a slow burn, the writing was beautiful and I hated every time I had to put the book down. .I felt as if I was in James' shoes, yearning for his first love, and hurting with him when it went unrequited. I thought Hewitt did a good job at describing how it feels to be an outcast among your peers and even within your own family because of your sexuality. I wish that adult James' story would have had a different ending, but obviously that's a personal preference and it doesn't change my feelings on the book overall. Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for the eARC.

Unexpected and brilliantly executed, Hewitt takes us on a journey of discovering what young love means, and the toll that unrequited love can take on our spirit. The prose is beautifully written, screaming Hewitt’s praises as a poet. I highly recommend this novel!

It's easy to see Hewitt's poetry come through in almost every line of this novel. "It was like walking through a folk song that afternoon - the blackbirds and the thrushes, the sweetness if the flowers, the boy who I loved, and who might even love me, waiting for me between the trees." He writes so beautifully of the English countryside, village life, the milk bottle run, the canal towpaths, the night skies, the trees and the birds.

Open, Heaven tells the story of James, a teenage boy growing up in a small, rural town. Now back in his hometown as an adult, James reflects on his coming-of-age, particularly focusing on the pivotal year when Luke arrived in town.

Told from the main character’s perspective, the reader is drawn into the isolation and otherness that comes with being a queer teenager in a small town. Hewitt's writing is undeniably beautiful. Open, Heaven is composed of long, intentional sentences that compel you to either luxuriate in Hewitt's vivid descriptions or endure, in what feels like real time, the hardships of being a teenage outcast.

Clearly this is the work of a distinguished (if young) writer. And yet I found it a little lacking. Yes, it’s an intense account of young or first love, so profoundly felt as to indelibly mark the narrator’s life forever more. And yes, it’s delivered in sensitive prose that makes very clear the isolated, doomed nature of his sexuality and alienation. But I didn’t feel it, and I didn’t find it enough to sustain the whole novel. Should it have been a short story or a novella? Should it have had a postscript exploring what came after the visit to the hometown and vast flashback laying out what happened with Like?
I don’t know. I just found the material plausible yet repetitive and thereby diminished.

Another novel by a poet? Don’t mind if I do. And this debut didn’t disappoint, further proving that poets are superheroes.

Pub date April 14, 2025

The friendship and love between two teenage boys in the English countryside.

At first I was a bit bored by the set up: a mid 30’s man returning home to his village in the north of England, reminiscing about his first love. If this alone does it for you, then great! But if you’re like me and your initial reaction is, “Meh”, then just hear me out. This story is a slow burn that is well worth the wait. I don’t mean that there is some huge plot twist, but that Hewitt was able to unearth the nuances of male friendship, of crushes, of longing, and of loneliness in a way that I have just not seen done on the page. I’m so glad I held out.

I got Shuggie Bain and My Brilliant Friend vibes with this one. Emotional, dreamy, and timeless. A great short read.

Thank you @netgalley and @knopf for this e-ARC.

I loved Hewitt's writing in this. I adored his style and the way he crafted the narrative. I thought the prose flowed nicely and the emotions were so impactful. I twas a wonderful read and truly showed his talents

This was a wonderful book which I devoured, even more so than Hewitt's previous book. What a gifted writer, there was poetry in every line and it was heartbreaking. Who cannot relate to this kind of coming of age yearning?

Lyrical novel about a boy coming into his sexuality in a small village, young love, and sometimes, making the worst possible choices with the best of intentions, and the fallout. Pick this up when it comes out some next year if you want some great pining, and young love that's reflected back on in your later years.

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf for the eARC!

I love when poets write fiction because every single sentence feels meticulously cared for. Seán Hewitt became an auto-buy author for me after I read his memoir, ALL DOWN DARKNESS WIDE, earlier this year. This is a stunning fictional debut that will speak to fans of ambient, tender queer burners like IN MEMORIAM, AT SWIM, TWO BOYS, and GOD’S OWN COUNTRY. Hewitt conveys teenage loneliness and desire with gripping narrative power amidst vivid descriptions of North English village life. His talent for emotive, immersive writing, for making you precisely feel as his characters do, is no small thing. I particularly admire writers who can create poignant and universal art out of commonplace and even unremarkable events, and that’s certainly the case with OPEN, HEAVEN — on its face, it’s a simple tale of a lonely teenage boy who falls for a straight boy who’s quite ordinary, but Hewitt makes you feel the all-consuming gravitas of adolescent love on the teetering brink of adulthood, as well as the heartbreaking desperation for queer belonging and sameness. This is ultimately a story about the transcendence of youthful first love, a purity and sublimity of feeling that eclipses anything you feel as an adult, and an inability to turn back the past and find that feeling again, or the version of yourself that was capable of feeling it. As someone who read Hewitt’s memoir, it felt at times like reading another memoir, which I think adds to the story’s verisimilitude and heart. Can't wait to recommend this to everyone I know!

This was a beautifully written novel about coming of age as a gay adolescent and experiencing first love/first obsession. It was a little slow for my personal taste, but it was easy to get lost in the English country setting and feel every excruciating feeling with the main character as they occurred throughout. I think a lot of young queer people experiencing these feelings for the first time will really enjoy this novel, as well as those who are older and are nostalgically looking back on their own lives.
Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for providing this arc in exchange for my honest review.

Living in a rural community in the north of England, James, in the process of haltingly exploring his own identity, often feels distant from his family and others his own age. He dreams of a life beyond the confines of his village. Then, he meets Luke, who has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle on their farm near James's village. James is drawn to Luke, who feels his own distance from his family, and the two strike up a friendship, though James is often unsure of where he stands with Luke.

This is a perceptive and nuanced story about two people struggling with their place in the world and finding a connection with each other, even though the exact nature of that connection is often muddled.

Highly recommended.

Open, Heaven was a slow-paced book written with gorgeous and melancholic prose. It was tender, sweet, and full of so much young gay yearning. James’ push and pull between his desires, his loneliness, and his home life was so well conveyed over the course of this book. During some moments while reading this understood James a little too well. Poets who write novels will always blow me away.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this in exchange for an honest review.

this is so… i cannot put my hand on it but my god did it feel like home
this is an arc i got from netgalley and the publisher (thank u for accepting my request by the way) and the review is my own
you know how life feels extra hard when you know you’re different? this is an ode to that
to love to friendships to being different and thinking you’re unloved yet you probably are loved so much beyond belief
the sorrows of my teenage years have not left me yet because i have not left my abusive childhood home but one day i will
it’s nice to see life from other perspectives
alsooo the writing style was so much fun, very easy to go through finished it so fast i’m actually regretting this now.
the forget me nots actually are my favorite flowers ever so this is the reason this book was given a complete 5 stars!

Wow! What a read. This is very much a coming of age novel and discovering your queerness. The longing that James has for Luke feels so reminiscent of the first time you really fall for someone. It is so well described. The book did keep me at the edge of my seat, and at the end almost brought me to tears. What a beautiful story.

I loved the author's memoir "All Down Darkness Wide" and so I was very excited to read his first novel. I was not disappointed. Two sixteen year-old boys have a fraught romantic entanglement in an English village in the early 2000s. It is a beautiful story of first love, powerfully told. The prose is exceptional. This book had me in my feelings the whole time. I will be getting this book for numerous bookish friends of mine when it comes out. I am honored that I got a chance to read this book early.