Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt

Thanks Knopf Canada and NetGalley for my advanced reader copy!

I just love it when I take a chance on a debut author on NetGalley and end up finding a glorious story and budding great writing. Open, Heaven is one of those finds – it’s Irish poet Seán Hewitt’s debut novel – and I adored getting to know James and Luke, two teenage boys who meet in a small village and, over the course of one year, begin to learn the tumultuous nature of first love and desire. It gets off to an undeniably slow start, albeit the beautifully told landscape set-ups on the first couple of pages are magical, and then, like poetry, we tumble into James’s story.

I just love a good coming-of-age story once in a while, and this one demonstrates such simple but life-affirming growth from both James and Luke. I adored the shifting relationship between the main characters, and especially how their varied personalities melded and jumped off the page. But I also enjoyed the light commentary on familial relationships, brotherly bond, the delicacy of the late teenage, coming-of-age years. It’s intimate and brooding and obsessive in that unique teen-aged way, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.