A review by madelinedalton
Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson

emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

I'm a bit disappointed by this one. Open Water was a slam dunk for me last year, and I expected Small Worlds to be the same. Caleb Azumah Nelson's otherworldly grasp of the English language is still apparent in this novel, which I love. Unfortunately, though, I felt as though the first ~150 pages were so focused on beautiful prose that they meandered away from the heartbeat of the story. The first ~60-80 pages especially felt like such a slog to me.

I think that Small Worlds largely repeats what Open Water did, not in a good way, and then stacks more characters/topics on top of that. I struggled to differentiate characters in the beginning because Nelson emphasizes flowery prose and big-picture emotions over characterization and dialogue in his writing. In my eyes, Open Water did not have this problem because it was shorter and had a more centralized focus. 

All of that said, the ending wrapped things up really nicely and tied all the themes together. I was just a little checked out by that point, so I couldn't fully appreciate it. 
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