Open Water

Beautiful and complicated love story. The writing style is hard to get around, and although i can understand the attempt to make you feel more, connect more with the stories and its feelings - I found it tricky to read. The story brings up important subjects in such a poetic way. You can not help yourself feel some of the pain and confusion. Even though you can appreciate it, it is impossible to fully understand it unless you have lived it yourself.

Loved loved loved. That’s all I have to say. The way it was written. The way I could relate bring a British girl and the things described. Ah amazing.

"…the one who looked like you or the one who couldn't see you, or couldn't see you as you were meant to be seen, or whether you would arrive home without incident, and live to fear another day." Yes, it's a beautifully written book. The prose is lyrical, almost gentle in the way it unfolds, like watching dandelions bloom, loosen themselves from the ground, float away, and then return to bloom in another season. What stayed with me most, though, wasn't just the beauty of the writing. It was the ache underneath it, the deep, familiar yearning to be seen, and to see others fully. Not as symbols or stories, but as people. Reading this made me feel everything at once: joy and dread, tenderness and rage, grief and relief. It made me smile, then sit still with a knot in my chest. It made me cry in that quiet way where you're not even sure what you're mourning, only that it's real. Very few books manage to leave you feeling awake and alone, and at the same time held. This is one of them for me. As a person of color, there's something especially disarming about stepping into the life of a brother and attempting to feel how the world presses differently against his body, how love and fear are shaped by being seen and mis-seen, how ordinary moments carry a weight others don't have to name. It reminded me how often people like us learn to translate ourselves, to soften or brace or explain, just to exist. That experience of inhabiting his interior world, of recognizing emotions you've never quite had language for but have always known, just…lingers. It's unsettling and intimate in the best way. This isn't a book I could simply read and move on from. It'll stay, because it tells a truth many of us live with: that being visible is not the same as being understood, and that being understood, even briefly, can feel like grace.

Caleb Azumah Nelson’s Open Water is a truly unique debut novel. A short love story with poetic language that leaves you to ponder and wonder.

The moment I started reading, I realized it was a second-person narrative. It got confusing at first. I got the hang of it eventually. I have read second-person narratives before, like Ashley Audrain’s The Push. It’s not a popular writing style for sure, and by using it, you risk isolating a lot of readers. At the end of the day, it’s all about how creatively the writer uses it in the context of the story.

The book was really short. Less than 200 pages. It reminded me of The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. I think this book was superior because while both are short reads and both are reflections on racial prejudice, this book had a linear narrative and focused solely on two main characters. Also, while it was a short read, its poetic language gave each page fulfilling substance. To the point where I purposely read slowly and took time to just take each chapter in and reflect.

As I continued reading, I was unsure where it was going. Romance novels are not usually known for their suspense. If anything, you could argue they are formulaic and predictable by their nature. So it was a good change of pace. The ending genuinely surprised me. I expected a dark and nihilistic ending considering the repetitive themes of depression and trauma. Thankfully, the ending was more bittersweet and open to interpretation, which I appreciated. It felt more mature and authentic.

Lastly, and perhaps I am biased, I really appreciated that this was a contemporary romance novel from the male perspective written by a male author. And it wasn’t toxic! Throughout the book, there were honest reflections on male mental health. Very true. Very raw. Very relatable.

This book starts being difficult to read, as the protagonist. After the initial effort it makes sense to keep on reading, to understand that trauma, love, music and photography are described in every page. Interesting way of expressing, interesting way to see and feel the world.