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A review by chaptersofmads
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
5.0
“What you're trying to say is that it's easier for you to hide in your own darkness, than emerge cloaked in your own vulnerability. Not better, but easier. However the longer you hold it in, the more likely you are to suffocate.
At some point, you must breathe.”
If you look at the reviews of this book, the word beautiful shows up an astonishing amount of times. I don't mean to add to that, but beautiful really is the first word I think of when I think of how to describe this.
There's others, of course: heart wrenching, lyrical, raw, hopeful, introspective, vibrant, emotional, evocative, and incredibly, unflinchingly human. And yet, beautiful seems to be the word that encompasses all of these the best. I'm someone that usually agrees when people say books are overwritten, but that couldn't be further from my opinion on this book. Not a single word was wasted.
Somehow, the author crafted an exquisite story within just 160 pages which is... astounding, to say the least. I think I said this in my review for The Deep by Rivers Solomon (another incredible novella) but I continue to be stunned when an author creates a masterpiece on such a small canvas. Instead of making the story feel rushed and incomplete, the short page count serves this story so well.
I struggled a bit getting into the book, slightly thrown off by the almost stream-of-consciousness style of writing (not the second person POV, though; I don't mind that at all) but as the story progressed, my previous hesitation went away and I just fell in love with the writing style. With the ways words were utilized, the sentences that showed up multiple times throughout the book, the details that were important enough to be included, and the story that they painted.
I don't know why it is so much harder for me to review books I love than ones I hated. It might just be that I feel I can never do the books I loved any kind of service or maybe just that it's easier to dwell on things we hate, than to explain how deeply something we loved affected us.
Either way, it's hard for me to sum up just how much I appreciated this book or how much I believe it deserves every bit of praise it has received, but I wanted to try. If you're someone that loves books about the complexity of being human, a study on love (romantic, familial, love of a stranger, etc.), race, trauma, and the struggles of vulnerability I highly recommend this.
At some point, you must breathe.”
If you look at the reviews of this book, the word beautiful shows up an astonishing amount of times. I don't mean to add to that, but beautiful really is the first word I think of when I think of how to describe this.
There's others, of course: heart wrenching, lyrical, raw, hopeful, introspective, vibrant, emotional, evocative, and incredibly, unflinchingly human. And yet, beautiful seems to be the word that encompasses all of these the best. I'm someone that usually agrees when people say books are overwritten, but that couldn't be further from my opinion on this book. Not a single word was wasted.
Somehow, the author crafted an exquisite story within just 160 pages which is... astounding, to say the least. I think I said this in my review for The Deep by Rivers Solomon (another incredible novella) but I continue to be stunned when an author creates a masterpiece on such a small canvas. Instead of making the story feel rushed and incomplete, the short page count serves this story so well.
I struggled a bit getting into the book, slightly thrown off by the almost stream-of-consciousness style of writing (not the second person POV, though; I don't mind that at all) but as the story progressed, my previous hesitation went away and I just fell in love with the writing style. With the ways words were utilized, the sentences that showed up multiple times throughout the book, the details that were important enough to be included, and the story that they painted.
I don't know why it is so much harder for me to review books I love than ones I hated. It might just be that I feel I can never do the books I loved any kind of service or maybe just that it's easier to dwell on things we hate, than to explain how deeply something we loved affected us.
Either way, it's hard for me to sum up just how much I appreciated this book or how much I believe it deserves every bit of praise it has received, but I wanted to try. If you're someone that loves books about the complexity of being human, a study on love (romantic, familial, love of a stranger, etc.), race, trauma, and the struggles of vulnerability I highly recommend this.