Set over the course of three summers, Small Worlds follows Stephen, a first-generation Londoner born to Ghanian immigrant parents, brother to Ray, and best friend to Adeline. On the cusp of big life changes, Stephen feels pressured to follow a certain path—a university degree, a move out of home—but when he decides instead to follow his first love, music, his world and family fractures in ways he didn’t foresee. Now Stephen must find a path and peace for himself: a space he can feel beautiful, a space he can feel free.

Moving from London, England to Accra, Ghana and back again, Small Worlds is an exquisite and intimate new novel about the people and places we hold close, from one of the most “elegant, poetic” (CNN) and important voices of a generation.

Think this might just be about my favorite book I've read in 2023, such a vibrant book, beautifully written, full of energy. A deeply moving tale of love, family, and coming of age

https://quizlit.org/book-of-the-month-november-2023 ( )

I haven't yet read the author's first novel, Open Water, but I will be doing so now. This book, set in Peckham, still a deprived London neighbourhood rather than the somewhat hip area it has become, focuses on Stephen, the narrator, and his wider family, immigrants from Ghana. We follow him through three years of his life as he matures from schoolboy to young adult, and his own visit to Ghana. Key to his development is his - and everyone he counts as family or friend - involvement in music - listening to it, playing it, dancing. Music speaks the words he doesn't always have the vocabulary for. Important too is his relationship with his mother and elder brother, to whom he is close, and his more complicated one with his father. And there's Del, his closest friend, then his girlfriend. Stephen observes the distance and difference his community still has from their white neighbours, and catalogues moments of tension. This tension also emerges intergenerationally, as parents view the sacrifices they made as being rejected by their young. There's a lot going on in this book, and expressed by a narrator still young enough to be consumed by his various passions. The prose is poetic, and confidently so. An immersive and satisfying read. ( )

Reason read: shared read, West Africa, Ghana
I read this because it was mentioned as a possible shared read and because I am reading African Authors this year and it was available. I read it. It is a quick read and is a story of a family immigrated from Ghana to England. It is about father-son relationships, coming of age, and the struggle of holding on to culture in a new place. ( )