This book is a work of art.

Caleb Azumah Nelson writes an achingly beautiful tale about falling in love against the backdrop of trauma, and harsh reality of living life as a Black man in London where racial profiling is a regular occurrence.

Written in second person narrative, it puts us, the reader, in the position of the unnamed main male character and we learn a lot of his inner psyche this way. We never find out the female characters name either. He is a photographer, she is a dancer.

We discover that both characters are young, Black and have both gotten scholarships to private schools. They developed their own things to keep sane in schools that were predominantly White; hers dancing, his basketball. It tenderly and poeticly shows the two of them slowly falling in love but his inner traumas threaten to tear them apart.

"Which came first, the violence or the pain?" His sadness is heartwrenching and having it written in second person narrative makes it all the more emotional.

I don't think I have ever read anything as beautiful.