Reviews with content warning for Drug use - Open Water

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Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson

37 reviews

jaja_1212's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book made me feel so many things. I felt joy, comfort, frustration, anger, sadness, hope along with the characters as well as about the characters. I still find myself thinking about it or even randomly remember a quote that spoke to me months after having read it.

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ezzab126's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny inspiring relaxing sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

At first I wasn’t convinced but in the end this book was fantastic. A snap shop into the life of a person, following them through trauma, love, violence, mental health struggle and relationships. Well written, perfectly succinct and overall beautiful.

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caseythereader's review against another edition

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emotional reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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lovefromhannah's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

READ TWO
don’t waste your time reading sally rooney. read caleb azumah nelson: his characters feel like people and you will know them as well as the ones in your own life.

READ ONE
nelson's writing is emotive and reaches towards the reader with a hand of connection. this is very much a modern day love story, with a focus on race, and a literary writing style. it is safe to say I much prefer [b:Open Water|58169312|Open Water|Caleb Azumah Nelson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1643273337l/58169312._SY75_.jpg|82730501] as supposed to [b:Normal People|41086877|Normal People|Sally Rooney|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1556822947l/41086877._SY75_.jpg|59141209].

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lb781's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

This is a beautiful book, an ode to Blackness and to Black Bodies. Although there is a main story, I would describe the writing more as poetry than as a novel. It’s definitely for people in the mood of reading something pretty “intellectual” , which requires a lot of focus. Not for people who hate poetry !

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nebraskanwriter's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is one of the most beautiful, important books I think I will ever read. As someone who is not Black and has been privileged to not go through the things that the author and so many other people of color go through, this book felt so important to me as it showed me so much of my own privilege/prejudice and made me understand things more then I ever have before.

The way Caleb writes is incredible, the way he is able to put words to trauma and raw emotion is unmatched. This is a story about two people who love each other but Caleb also talks a lot about police brutality, how that has affected the main character and how it affects the Black community on a daily basis.

This is such an important book for everyone to read as it deals with internalizing trauma, racial profiling, police brutality, learning to love yourself even when the society you live in doesn’t love you/care about you. So, so important for everyone to read this so that the Black community can be seen, they can be heard and we can put an end to violence against their community and people of color in general.

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vasha's review against another edition

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hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Open Water is a literary love story, the story of a Ghanaian-British man, a photographer, trying to find an authentic, open way to love despite the trauma of repeated encounters with violence and police brutality. I had some reservations about reality of the love story: I was very unconvinced by how the protagonist and his girlfriend (both unnamed, though other characters in the book have names) supposedly became instant best friends when they met. The later stages of their relationship were rather better depicted. Part of the book is also devoted to the protag's interactions with other Black men (and a few women)--I found the sections about his friends interesting. It's quite interior, full of analysis of the protag's mind, which he is self-aware about although barely able to speak his thoughts aloud; also, it spends a fair bit of page space on reflections about being Black.

As befits literary fiction, the literal content of this book is overshadowed by how it's told: its interweaving of metaphors; its frequent flashbacks guided by similarities and emotions; its repetitive, rhythmed prose (which, sadly, was rather undone by the fact that the audiobook was monotonously narrated by the author himself). I like this kind of thing, but I wasn't entirely won over by how it was carried out in this case. Too often, I was jerked out of the reflective writing by the conventionality of a paragraph or the intrusion of banal language into a high-flying passage. A description of playing basketball, a list of physical and emotional experiences each prefaced by "You want to...," ends "You just want to be free" as if this was a climax.

I'm only referring to the narration, because most of the dialogue is impoverished on purpose, the protagonist being reduced to few words or silence at important moments. The girlfriend's verbal skills are something for the protagonist to aspire to. She lyrically describes what dancing is like for her: "I’m making space and I’m dancing into the space. I’m like, dancing into the space the drums leave, you know, between the kick and the snare and the hat, where that silence lies, that huge silence, those moments and spaces the drums are asking you to fill." The protagonist answers less inventively by inviting her to a club where he says there's "an energy that's very freeing, a bunch of black people being themselves."

Another problem I had with the book is that it's stuffed with talk about other works, mostly music but also literature, film, and visual arts. It felt too consciously academic. Overall, the experience of reading this book wasn't terrible, and it had some real high points (there are passages I'd enjoy quoting at length) and a satisfying ending.

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