Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson

Two young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are black British, both won scholarships to private school where they struggled to belong, both are now artists - he a photographer, she a dancer - trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence. 

At once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity, Open Water asks what it means to be a person in. A world that sees you only as you are respected for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it. With gorgeous, soulful intensity, Caleb Azumah Nelson as written the most essential debut of recent years. 

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher Penguin/Fig Tree/Viking, in return for a honest review. 

Now this book was so different to anything I’ve read before. It’s all told from a second person POV, and you never know his or her name, which I thought was a great touch. But what got me with that, was because you never know their names, you do hear one name, and that gives that person the stand out and importance they need in this book, and that name is Daniel

You’re drawing a line towards her. No, the line was there, is always there, will always be there, but you’re trying to reinforce, to strengthen.

The story hits hard. It makes you feel so many different things, and they all grab you quite deep. The story is one of love and friendship, a real closeness. Caleb has delivered this so well, that you feel it deep down, and you just know these two people just fit together. But there is a background of sadness too, and a deep rooted problem which is all too real in todays world, racism. 

It’s written so beautifully it’s hard to actually put it into words. Read it, and see what you think.