“…the dead never leave. They’re in the slink of our hips, the swing of our limbs, in our whispers, our screams, our ecstasy.”

Thank you netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.


Small Worlds tells the story of finding your home, your people, your culture, your groove and staying in that small world for as long as you can. And what happens when those worlds crash down around you. How systemic racism will always find its way into your small world to dismantle it completely. How depression will always find its way into your small world and break you down with loneliness. How trauma is passed down and so deeply ingrained we don’t even realize we’ve inherited it. So we dance our way through it all as best as we can in the groove we’ve found. We sit in the anger we sit in the hurt we let pain take over to remind ourselves to never forget.

Much like Open Water there is a poetic prose using musical references to tell the story. The way he portrays love and desire and other intense human emotions, making you also feel them deep within you. I enjoy the fact that he captures so perfectly how parents are fully autonomous beings as well and how they have full lives before entering parenthood which very often mirror closely the lives their children end up a part of, that was done beautifully. As well as the way joy and horror are so closely intertwined. Figuring out how and why we as humans are the way we are whether it’s inherited traumas or simply how are day to day life impacts us. We find a way to dance through it creating safe spaces for others like us small worlds for us to stay in. Caleb Azumah Nelson is a force to be reckoned with and continues to be an auto buy/auto read author for me.