Book review – Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson
Reviewed by Mûthoni Mûirûrî, Founder and owner, Soma Nami
Small Worlds follows Stephen, a British-Ghanaian young man, across three summers as he moves through first love, heartbreak, family tension, grief, and the quiet confusion of becoming an adult.
At eighteen, Stephen is standing at that fragile edge where everything still feels possible. His relationship with Del, built around music and shared feeling, captures the uncertainty of young love so perfectly – the waiting, the hoping, the fear of unrequited love, of naming what’s already there. As Stephen and Del move to college and their lives begin to pull in different directions, his world starts to shrink, and we see how loneliness and disappointment can settle in when the futures we imagined slip away. When our anchors are shaken.
What Azumah Nelson does so beautifully is show how Stephen survives these moments through the small worlds he creates: music, food, dance, fleeting connections, moments of tenderness. Music in particular feels like Stephen’s emotional compass, a way of understanding himself when words fail. Food becomes memory and comfort. Even the briefest touch carries weight. Nothing is rushed, but nothing feels indulgent either. There’s also a moving exploration of family, especially Stephen’s strained relationship with his father and the legacy of migration, sacrifice, and unspoken grief. Loss hangs quietly over the novel, and Azumah Nelson handles it with such restraint. I adored Stephen’s relationship with his brother, Ray. I found it so tender and utterly moving.
There were moments when Stephen really tested my patience, in the way only an eighteen-year-old can. I found myself wanting him to act, to choose something, rather than staying so caught up in his own head and drifting from one feeling to the next. The sections set in Ghana also felt rushed, almost obligatory, as though the story might have worked just as well without the return. Touch points like Cape Coast Castle, Elmina Castle, and the Door of No Return felt more like boxes being ticked than moments given real emotional weight. Still, these were relatively minor misgivings in an otherwise affecting novel.
Ultimately, Small Worlds is a soft, thoughtful novel about love in all its forms and the spaces we retreat into to feel safe, seen, and free. It’s intimate, musical, poetic and deeply felt. One of those books that lingers because it understands how big our smallest worlds can be.
Muthoni Muiruri
____________
Available now at Soma Nami Bookstore
📍Greenhouse Mall Ngong Rd |📍33 Ngara Rd, Ngara
Muthoni Muiruri
