What do you think?
Rate this book
Like Water Like Sea
LIKE WATER LIKE SEA is an immersive novel of self-discovery, resilience, and the unifying power of love. It follows the life of Nia, a queer, bi/pansexual naturopath in London, as her life unfolds across three pivotal moments, spanning from her 28th year to a life-altering realisation at the age of 50. At the heart of this gripping narrative lies Nia’s profound encounter with grief. A decade after the devastating loss of her sister, who tragically succumbed to suicide while battling with cyclothymia—a similar mental illness that her mother battles with—Nia’s world is forever transformed. As she grapples with the pain of her sister’s passing, Nia embarks on a poignant self-exploration, revealing grief as the ultimate manifestation of love, forever shaping our very being.
272 pages, Hardcover
Published May 28, 2024
4 people are currently reading
995 people want to read
About the author
Olumide Popoola
11 books50 followersLondon-based Nigerian-German Olumide Popoola is a writer, speaker and performer.
Her publications include essays, poetry, the novella this is not about sadness (Unrast, 2010), the play text Also by Mail (edition assemblage, 2013), the short collection breach, which she co-authored with Annie Holmes (Peirene Press, 2016), as well as recordings in collaboration with musicians.
In 2004 she won the May Ayim Award in the category Poetry, the first Black German Literary Award. Olumide has a PhD in Creative Writing and has lectured in creative writing at various universities.
Her novel When We Speak of Nothing was published by Cassava Republic Press in July 2017.
Her publications include essays, poetry, the novella this is not about sadness (Unrast, 2010), the play text Also by Mail (edition assemblage, 2013), the short collection breach, which she co-authored with Annie Holmes (Peirene Press, 2016), as well as recordings in collaboration with musicians.
In 2004 she won the May Ayim Award in the category Poetry, the first Black German Literary Award. Olumide has a PhD in Creative Writing and has lectured in creative writing at various universities.
Her novel When We Speak of Nothing was published by Cassava Republic Press in July 2017.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
May 19, 2024
3.5
Like Water Like Sea follows Nia through three moments in her life. The first, ten years after her older sister committed suicide, finds Nia floating in a river. She is discovered by Crystal and Rahul who are out running. Although Nia has no suicidal thoughts the pair stop to find out if she is okay and a friendship begins which Nia will question herself about throughout the next 20 years as it evolves.
The next moment is on the 20 year anniversary where Nia's relationships with all her significant others has changed again including the lifelong love/friendship she has with Melvin (her sister's best friend and dance partner).
The final moment is at her 50th birthday, 30 years after Johari's death when Nia imagines what her life will be like in the future and begins to finally understand herself.
During the book we also hear from Melvin and Susu (Nia's mother who has bipolar) as they navigate life through their loss of the woman they loved and through Nia.
I'm still not sure how much I liked this novel given, as it is, to a lot of introspection. Even Nia herself admits that sometimes there is too much thinking about the person you project to the world rather than just being that person. She meets a person called Be who seems to embody this "just accept who I am" persona.
There's a lot packed into this book including contemplation of naturopathy, gender identity and fluidity, relationships with family, friends and lovers, death, suicide and mental health issues. I think it will speak loudly to a lot of readers but I prefer doing rather than thinking and I found the extensive self examination a little too self indulgent at times.
Thanks to Netgalley and Cassava Republic for the advance review copy.
Like Water Like Sea follows Nia through three moments in her life. The first, ten years after her older sister committed suicide, finds Nia floating in a river. She is discovered by Crystal and Rahul who are out running. Although Nia has no suicidal thoughts the pair stop to find out if she is okay and a friendship begins which Nia will question herself about throughout the next 20 years as it evolves.
The next moment is on the 20 year anniversary where Nia's relationships with all her significant others has changed again including the lifelong love/friendship she has with Melvin (her sister's best friend and dance partner).
The final moment is at her 50th birthday, 30 years after Johari's death when Nia imagines what her life will be like in the future and begins to finally understand herself.
During the book we also hear from Melvin and Susu (Nia's mother who has bipolar) as they navigate life through their loss of the woman they loved and through Nia.
I'm still not sure how much I liked this novel given, as it is, to a lot of introspection. Even Nia herself admits that sometimes there is too much thinking about the person you project to the world rather than just being that person. She meets a person called Be who seems to embody this "just accept who I am" persona.
There's a lot packed into this book including contemplation of naturopathy, gender identity and fluidity, relationships with family, friends and lovers, death, suicide and mental health issues. I think it will speak loudly to a lot of readers but I prefer doing rather than thinking and I found the extensive self examination a little too self indulgent at times.
Thanks to Netgalley and Cassava Republic for the advance review copy.
January 22, 2024
What a brilliant book!
We meet Nia in Like Water Like Sea who is a queer, bi/pansexual naturopath living in London. The book spans over thirty years of her life, we need her after the death of her sister and how she is dealing with her grief. Her mother is bipolar and that adds another layer of heaviness for her to work through.
Nia decides to leave a party with a girl she’s been seeing on and off to go into the water to feel what it is like to drown. While she does that a couple jogging pass sees her and inquires after her, this leads to a friendship/ situationship. She tries figuring out who she is, what she wants for her life and how to navigate grief that means all consuming.
I really enjoyed this book. It feels so fresh and biting. The characters are so flawed but I love the disastrous mistakes they make and their bid to make their life one that they are proud of. The journey was amazing to see unfold.
I don’t want to compare this book to anything, but if you love Sally Rooney’s novels you will enjoy this book!
We meet Nia in Like Water Like Sea who is a queer, bi/pansexual naturopath living in London. The book spans over thirty years of her life, we need her after the death of her sister and how she is dealing with her grief. Her mother is bipolar and that adds another layer of heaviness for her to work through.
Nia decides to leave a party with a girl she’s been seeing on and off to go into the water to feel what it is like to drown. While she does that a couple jogging pass sees her and inquires after her, this leads to a friendship/ situationship. She tries figuring out who she is, what she wants for her life and how to navigate grief that means all consuming.
I really enjoyed this book. It feels so fresh and biting. The characters are so flawed but I love the disastrous mistakes they make and their bid to make their life one that they are proud of. The journey was amazing to see unfold.
I don’t want to compare this book to anything, but if you love Sally Rooney’s novels you will enjoy this book!
November 2, 2024
‘People find it difficult.’
‘What?’
‘The falling apart. To witness it.’
Like Water Like Sea is the second novel by Olumide Popoola after her debut When We Speak of Nothing.
It is published by Cassava Republic:
The novel opens:
1.
The Swimmer
Looking up from underneath, it made the sun blurry. The water swishing against my face, a thin layer, not enough to enter my nostrils. I was looking for her. I wanted to know what it was like, to be drowning, losing your breathing to suffocation.
Of course, I didn’t last. I didn’t have enough drive to do it, didn’t have enough reasons. You would have to be invested in the idea, digging deep for this to be your final answer. Nothing like that was on my mind. I wasn’t feeling despair. Not in that way. It is hard to take your own life. I think it is against your own body. Such an effort, incredible. I knew that before I jumped into the River Lea with my clothes on. You had to orchestrate the whole thing and pay attention to the variables.
The only thing I had done was leave Mum’s after the not-so-unusual but still weird morning. For some reason I went straight to Hackney thinking, let’s see this thing, drowning.
Mum was stable as we both called it but on the unstable side of that. She had been rummaging through a big cardboard box packed tight with clothes. I thought she was looking for something that belonged to Johari. It was ten years this year.
The first person narrator here, Nia, is in her late twenties. Ten years earlier her sister, Mia, Johari had drowned herself in the River Lea, tormented by an early diagnosis of the onset of cyclothymia, their mother SuSu having suffered with bipolar disorder from just after Johari's conception and a traumatic trip she took with her husband, Ben, to Gaza.
Explaining the novel in an interview in The Republic, a Nigerian cultural journal, Popooll commented:
‘I felt it was important to write about disruptive and sometimes public manic or psychotic episodes, both to raise awareness and to question why we claim to hold space but are not prepared to accept what falling apart entails.’
The novel as read/printed, has three sections - All Water Goes Somewhere, Like Water Like Sea and Everything Makes Mud, Even The Dirt, the first two around 100 pages and the last, which presents endings (see below) around 30.
And within the first two parts there are three intertwined strands:
The Swimmer - narrated by Nia, and which takes us through her life over the next 10+ years, not always with clear time markers, the narration jumping forward but also containing her retrospective analysis of things that have happened, including her relationships with two women, Temi, who she is dating as the novel opens and Alicia, a statistician.
Alicia's Colombian mother died when she was a child and her Irish father moved the family to Dublin, but Alicia eventually returns to the country to work, and when Nia visits her there
When Alicia moves to Columbia, she realises Alicia can truly be at home in a way she and Nia can't in London, despite Nia's strong and abiding love for the city:
I felt the same when I visited Kenya and hung out with relatives. When everywhere I looked, bodies like mine were the norm. I decompressed, physically. I could feel the edges and curves, the corners of myself, which made me feel awkward sometimes and as if I was entirely new to my own being. It freed me too, that I was able to breathe into myself and to leave my own shape hanging, which meant letting go of the tension of entering a world where the way I moved was always already explaining, or defying, where I negotiated the normality of hostility, where your body, and your mind, meaning mine, were, was, never neutral.
The Dancers - set when Johari and Nia were teenagers, and which begins with an encounter between Johari and a new boy in the area Melvin, who she persuades to join her in performing their own freely interpreted dance outside of a dance studio. Johari and Melvin form a strong bond, and Nia here is more the seldom-mentioned younger sister in the background, but we learn from The Swimmers that Melvin and Nia dated, even before Johari's death, and became strong friends, and occassional lovers, thereafter. Melvin we learn also has a trauma of his own, a twin sister who died at birth, something which leaves him feeling incomplete.
The Climber - the sections that appear least frequently, but told from SuSu's perspective, and which gives some of the backstory that would be less clear to Nia, including the reason for her interest in Gaza, and the plight of the Palestinians, which is motivated by learning of the early 20th century Uganda Scheme which a friend, also of Kenyan origin, points out could have left Kenyans in a similar plight.
In All Water Goes Somewhere Nia is, if not exactly rescued (since as she explains she was simply experimenting) certainly helped by two joggers, Rahul and Crystal, who find her in the river and she forms a strong bond with them, including a rather failed threesome attempt, but the Like Water Like Sea section opens with a house-warming party for their new flat where it becomes clear that Rahul, in particular, has little sympathy for what happened to her, and sees himself as something of a saviour. As Be, a guest she meets at the party, and who becomes another close friend with whom Nia has a particularly complex relationship tells her:
‘People find it difficult.’
‘What?’
‘The falling apart. To witness it.’
I nodded.
‘You could talk to Rahul, find out why he’s so angry with you.’
‘I’ve tried.’
‘You can try again.’
‘I could.’
I could tell him what had mattered that weekend. It would hurt him because it had nothing to do with him. All that had happened between us after the water was good sex and spare time. Then over the months, a bond had formed. Perhaps he needed me to need him.
And that witnessing of someone falling apart, particularly someone who might normally be there for you, is key to Nia's relationship with her mother, and the challenge with navigating her own life.
The last section, Everything Makes Mud, Even The Dirt, written in the conditional tense, presents three hypothetical, if not endings more what might have happened next, looking ahead to Nia's 50th birthday, with chapters called “This,” “or this,” or “Probably, most likely, this.”
Like everyone, we had to learn about the cracking open. How to allow it, the falling apart, the catching each other.
To be caught you had to let go.
I didn’t know whether we failed her. I didn’t know.
I liked to think she was still swimming. Just like us. Just like we all were.
I would have to acknowledge slightly mixed views on this. The characters' tangled lives and fluid relationships mirror the complexities of life (although this sort of novel where one needs to keep track of who-is-who is not really for me, and for example I struggled to share Nia's outrage at the events of the party that opened the second section). And an exploration of living with someone with bipolar disorder is a welcome addition to the literary spectrum. Against that the 'The Dancers' strand didn't really work for me, the Melvin character not really developed, and I'd have liked, by contrast, to see more of 'The Climber' and an exploration of SuSu, who is more often aluded to than seen on the page.
‘What?’
‘The falling apart. To witness it.’
Like Water Like Sea is the second novel by Olumide Popoola after her debut When We Speak of Nothing.
It is published by Cassava Republic:
Cassava Republic Press was founded in Abuja, Nigeria, 2006 with the aim of bringing high quality fiction and non-fiction for adults and children alike to a global audience. We have offices in Abuja and London.
Our mission is to change the way we all think about African writing. We think that contemporary African prose should be rooted in African experience in all its diversity, whether set in filthy-yet-sexy megacities such as Lagos or Kinshasa, in little-known communities outside of Bahia, in the recent past or indeed the near future.
We also think the time has come to build a new body of African writing that links writers and readers from Benin to Bahia. It’s therefore the right time to ask challenging questions of African writing – where have we come from, where are we now, where are we going? Our role is to facilitate and participate in addressing these questions, as our list grows. We are still just beginning.
The novel opens:
1.
The Swimmer
Looking up from underneath, it made the sun blurry. The water swishing against my face, a thin layer, not enough to enter my nostrils. I was looking for her. I wanted to know what it was like, to be drowning, losing your breathing to suffocation.
Of course, I didn’t last. I didn’t have enough drive to do it, didn’t have enough reasons. You would have to be invested in the idea, digging deep for this to be your final answer. Nothing like that was on my mind. I wasn’t feeling despair. Not in that way. It is hard to take your own life. I think it is against your own body. Such an effort, incredible. I knew that before I jumped into the River Lea with my clothes on. You had to orchestrate the whole thing and pay attention to the variables.
The only thing I had done was leave Mum’s after the not-so-unusual but still weird morning. For some reason I went straight to Hackney thinking, let’s see this thing, drowning.
Mum was stable as we both called it but on the unstable side of that. She had been rummaging through a big cardboard box packed tight with clothes. I thought she was looking for something that belonged to Johari. It was ten years this year.
The first person narrator here, Nia, is in her late twenties. Ten years earlier her sister, Mia, Johari had drowned herself in the River Lea, tormented by an early diagnosis of the onset of cyclothymia, their mother SuSu having suffered with bipolar disorder from just after Johari's conception and a traumatic trip she took with her husband, Ben, to Gaza.
Explaining the novel in an interview in The Republic, a Nigerian cultural journal, Popooll commented:
‘I felt it was important to write about disruptive and sometimes public manic or psychotic episodes, both to raise awareness and to question why we claim to hold space but are not prepared to accept what falling apart entails.’
The novel as read/printed, has three sections - All Water Goes Somewhere, Like Water Like Sea and Everything Makes Mud, Even The Dirt, the first two around 100 pages and the last, which presents endings (see below) around 30.
And within the first two parts there are three intertwined strands:
The Swimmer - narrated by Nia, and which takes us through her life over the next 10+ years, not always with clear time markers, the narration jumping forward but also containing her retrospective analysis of things that have happened, including her relationships with two women, Temi, who she is dating as the novel opens and Alicia, a statistician.
Alicia's Colombian mother died when she was a child and her Irish father moved the family to Dublin, but Alicia eventually returns to the country to work, and when Nia visits her there
When Alicia moves to Columbia, she realises Alicia can truly be at home in a way she and Nia can't in London, despite Nia's strong and abiding love for the city:
I felt the same when I visited Kenya and hung out with relatives. When everywhere I looked, bodies like mine were the norm. I decompressed, physically. I could feel the edges and curves, the corners of myself, which made me feel awkward sometimes and as if I was entirely new to my own being. It freed me too, that I was able to breathe into myself and to leave my own shape hanging, which meant letting go of the tension of entering a world where the way I moved was always already explaining, or defying, where I negotiated the normality of hostility, where your body, and your mind, meaning mine, were, was, never neutral.
The Dancers - set when Johari and Nia were teenagers, and which begins with an encounter between Johari and a new boy in the area Melvin, who she persuades to join her in performing their own freely interpreted dance outside of a dance studio. Johari and Melvin form a strong bond, and Nia here is more the seldom-mentioned younger sister in the background, but we learn from The Swimmers that Melvin and Nia dated, even before Johari's death, and became strong friends, and occassional lovers, thereafter. Melvin we learn also has a trauma of his own, a twin sister who died at birth, something which leaves him feeling incomplete.
The Climber - the sections that appear least frequently, but told from SuSu's perspective, and which gives some of the backstory that would be less clear to Nia, including the reason for her interest in Gaza, and the plight of the Palestinians, which is motivated by learning of the early 20th century Uganda Scheme which a friend, also of Kenyan origin, points out could have left Kenyans in a similar plight.
In All Water Goes Somewhere Nia is, if not exactly rescued (since as she explains she was simply experimenting) certainly helped by two joggers, Rahul and Crystal, who find her in the river and she forms a strong bond with them, including a rather failed threesome attempt, but the Like Water Like Sea section opens with a house-warming party for their new flat where it becomes clear that Rahul, in particular, has little sympathy for what happened to her, and sees himself as something of a saviour. As Be, a guest she meets at the party, and who becomes another close friend with whom Nia has a particularly complex relationship tells her:
‘People find it difficult.’
‘What?’
‘The falling apart. To witness it.’
I nodded.
‘You could talk to Rahul, find out why he’s so angry with you.’
‘I’ve tried.’
‘You can try again.’
‘I could.’
I could tell him what had mattered that weekend. It would hurt him because it had nothing to do with him. All that had happened between us after the water was good sex and spare time. Then over the months, a bond had formed. Perhaps he needed me to need him.
And that witnessing of someone falling apart, particularly someone who might normally be there for you, is key to Nia's relationship with her mother, and the challenge with navigating her own life.
The last section, Everything Makes Mud, Even The Dirt, written in the conditional tense, presents three hypothetical, if not endings more what might have happened next, looking ahead to Nia's 50th birthday, with chapters called “This,” “or this,” or “Probably, most likely, this.”
Like everyone, we had to learn about the cracking open. How to allow it, the falling apart, the catching each other.
To be caught you had to let go.
I didn’t know whether we failed her. I didn’t know.
I liked to think she was still swimming. Just like us. Just like we all were.
I would have to acknowledge slightly mixed views on this. The characters' tangled lives and fluid relationships mirror the complexities of life (although this sort of novel where one needs to keep track of who-is-who is not really for me, and for example I struggled to share Nia's outrage at the events of the party that opened the second section). And an exploration of living with someone with bipolar disorder is a welcome addition to the literary spectrum. Against that the 'The Dancers' strand didn't really work for me, the Melvin character not really developed, and I'd have liked, by contrast, to see more of 'The Climber' and an exploration of SuSu, who is more often aluded to than seen on the page.
February 17, 2024
Like Water Like Sea is a novel about loss, self-discovery, love, and mental illness, as it follows a queer woman in three moments of her life. Nia lives in London and ten years after her sister's death by suicide, she is struggling for what she wants out of her relationships and how to relate to her mother, who has bipolar, now that she is also an adult and with their shared grief. When she makes two new friends, a couple who found her at a low point, a journey starts in which she will make mistakes, navigate her connections to other people, and emerge at fifty years old with fresh realisations.
This is a complex novel that weaves together a lot of emotion, exploring not just the grief that runs through the book but also types of love, queerness, race, and ways of living in a harsh world. The styles of narration change, with Nia's perspective predominantly, but also sections near the start that explore the lives of her sister and mother, and also a final part that is more ambiguous, offering up three potential endings (with one marked as most probable). This offers a cacophony of perspective and the idea that there's not just one way of living, especially living with grief and in different kinds of relationships. Queerness plays an important part in these endings, exploring how family structures are created, and generally the book explores how relationships are often not made on equal or matching emotions, and must be navigated as such.
Another very crucial part of the book is bipolar and cyclothymia, and the impact this has on Nia's mother and sister, but also how it is not everything about them. It is refreshing to see this kind of depiction and the complexity of mental illness and how different people experience things. Generally, the book explores the fluidity and messiness of many things, and always returns to kinds of love. Though the narrative is more of a self-discovery, meditative one than big events happening, changes in relationships do mark the passing of time and structure in the novel.
Like Water Like Sea is a powerful book, at times bittersweet, and filled with different snippets of experience and emotion. It is great for fans of literary fiction that engages with feelings and self-discovery, and with ways of forming families and relationships.
This is a complex novel that weaves together a lot of emotion, exploring not just the grief that runs through the book but also types of love, queerness, race, and ways of living in a harsh world. The styles of narration change, with Nia's perspective predominantly, but also sections near the start that explore the lives of her sister and mother, and also a final part that is more ambiguous, offering up three potential endings (with one marked as most probable). This offers a cacophony of perspective and the idea that there's not just one way of living, especially living with grief and in different kinds of relationships. Queerness plays an important part in these endings, exploring how family structures are created, and generally the book explores how relationships are often not made on equal or matching emotions, and must be navigated as such.
Another very crucial part of the book is bipolar and cyclothymia, and the impact this has on Nia's mother and sister, but also how it is not everything about them. It is refreshing to see this kind of depiction and the complexity of mental illness and how different people experience things. Generally, the book explores the fluidity and messiness of many things, and always returns to kinds of love. Though the narrative is more of a self-discovery, meditative one than big events happening, changes in relationships do mark the passing of time and structure in the novel.
Like Water Like Sea is a powerful book, at times bittersweet, and filled with different snippets of experience and emotion. It is great for fans of literary fiction that engages with feelings and self-discovery, and with ways of forming families and relationships.
Read
May 31, 2024✨2024 BOOK REVIEW✨
📚Like Water Like Sea - Olumide Popoola📚
Such a beautiful book, exploring themes of grief, love and self-discovery. Deeply powerful and utterly heartbreaking, you can’t help but feel yourself standing in the shoes of the characters, feeling the magnitude of their journey.
Popoola does an incredible job of portraying the experience of motherhood and the many hats that we wear as mothers. The prose is stunning and definitely one to watch for future releases.
What you can expect:
🌊 Bipolar disorder rep
🌊 Complexities of motherhood
🌊 Pansexual rep
🌊 Journey of self-realisation
A heart wrenching book that will stay with me for a long time.
Thank you so much to @olumide_popoola_writer @instabooktours and @cassavarepublicpress for sending me an e-copy of the book to review and having me on your book tour 🙏🏻
#lizzieslittlelibrary #likewaterlikesea #olumidepopoola #bookreview #bookstagram #aussiebookstagrammer #booklover #bookworm #instabooktours #cassavarepublicpress #prproduct
📚Like Water Like Sea - Olumide Popoola📚
Such a beautiful book, exploring themes of grief, love and self-discovery. Deeply powerful and utterly heartbreaking, you can’t help but feel yourself standing in the shoes of the characters, feeling the magnitude of their journey.
Popoola does an incredible job of portraying the experience of motherhood and the many hats that we wear as mothers. The prose is stunning and definitely one to watch for future releases.
What you can expect:
🌊 Bipolar disorder rep
🌊 Complexities of motherhood
🌊 Pansexual rep
🌊 Journey of self-realisation
A heart wrenching book that will stay with me for a long time.
Thank you so much to @olumide_popoola_writer @instabooktours and @cassavarepublicpress for sending me an e-copy of the book to review and having me on your book tour 🙏🏻
#lizzieslittlelibrary #likewaterlikesea #olumidepopoola #bookreview #bookstagram #aussiebookstagrammer #booklover #bookworm #instabooktours #cassavarepublicpress #prproduct
March 16, 2024
I wanted to really love this book. Unfortunately, I felt it needed tighter editting- it never felt cohesive with the multiple perspectives and mixed timelines. I learned a lot but found it a struggle to stay engaged.
March 8, 2024
I went into this story blind, expecting it to surprise and anchor me. For someone going in blind, my expectations were unreasonably bursting at the seams. But were these expectations met?
Nia is the little sister to Johari, an accomplished dancer, a lover, and a caregiver. Nia loses her big sister to a mental disorder and then lives her life constantly trying to reach the depths of her grief. I meet Nia first, a naturopath in sync with the basic order of wellness whose entire work is grounded in self-healing. At first, she is on a journey to grasp the root of her sister's pain and eventual undoing. She probes without asking. She searches without really looking. But mostly, she reaches for the underlying meaning beyond the facade people present to her, swimming her way into the undercurrent tides of their lives.
I find Melvin and Johari next, the dancers. Theirs was an honest meeting, a friendship stayed by dancing, a way of dealing with stress and the fluctuations of life. Their dancing was a healing ground for the time it lasted. And when Johari dies, Melvin continues to hold the space for their friendship in each dance step he perfected without her in his orbit. Johari's light continues to shine through all the people she left behind. While some of us might argue that leaving that way is not sudden and it's a well-thought plan, I'd say that it is; for the victim and the loved ones. Suicide is sudden. It is the kind of death that sneaks up on people. You're fine one minute and the next minute, you just want it to end.
Susu, their mother, is perhaps the person I sympathize with the most. She loses herself in her illness and loses her daughter. Being a parent is a never-ending circle of worry, paranoia, and second-guessing. It's a whole lot of work and it's not surprising if you find yourself wondering whether you're doing a good job or you're simply winging it. She blames herself for her daughter's death and comes to understand that her living daughter needs her more than ever. There are no illusions of perfect parenting in this book because the author gives us the raw, unvarnished truths about these characters' lives and what shapes their decisions. I'm awed by Susu's collections of imperfection in perfect little pieces that she weaves together to give Nia a rich version of herself. Eventually. It's an arduous journey to healing and acceptance. But more importantly, grief knows no bounds.
I enjoyed the author's style. This is my first time reading Olumide Popoola and I think I want to read more. The story spans several decades and begins with the anniversary of Johari's death. The mixed narrative style helps me connect with each character on a different level. Nia's stream of consciousness is rich in self-reflection and introspection, but sometimes I didn't appreciate her going on for too long. I was almost annoyed that she built her entire existence on the loss of her sister, but then I remembered that I do not get to tell people how they grieve. It's not in my place even if they're fictional characters. But mostly, I love how she evolves over the years and I cannot help but admit that she is a formidable character.
So, if you love sad, reflective literature that explores the lives of women (queer, mentally brave, and Black) who are unpretentious in the way they approach life, then pick up Like Water Like Sea when it comes out in May. I cannot wait for more people to experience Nia's story.
Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC!
Nia is the little sister to Johari, an accomplished dancer, a lover, and a caregiver. Nia loses her big sister to a mental disorder and then lives her life constantly trying to reach the depths of her grief. I meet Nia first, a naturopath in sync with the basic order of wellness whose entire work is grounded in self-healing. At first, she is on a journey to grasp the root of her sister's pain and eventual undoing. She probes without asking. She searches without really looking. But mostly, she reaches for the underlying meaning beyond the facade people present to her, swimming her way into the undercurrent tides of their lives.
I find Melvin and Johari next, the dancers. Theirs was an honest meeting, a friendship stayed by dancing, a way of dealing with stress and the fluctuations of life. Their dancing was a healing ground for the time it lasted. And when Johari dies, Melvin continues to hold the space for their friendship in each dance step he perfected without her in his orbit. Johari's light continues to shine through all the people she left behind. While some of us might argue that leaving that way is not sudden and it's a well-thought plan, I'd say that it is; for the victim and the loved ones. Suicide is sudden. It is the kind of death that sneaks up on people. You're fine one minute and the next minute, you just want it to end.
Susu, their mother, is perhaps the person I sympathize with the most. She loses herself in her illness and loses her daughter. Being a parent is a never-ending circle of worry, paranoia, and second-guessing. It's a whole lot of work and it's not surprising if you find yourself wondering whether you're doing a good job or you're simply winging it. She blames herself for her daughter's death and comes to understand that her living daughter needs her more than ever. There are no illusions of perfect parenting in this book because the author gives us the raw, unvarnished truths about these characters' lives and what shapes their decisions. I'm awed by Susu's collections of imperfection in perfect little pieces that she weaves together to give Nia a rich version of herself. Eventually. It's an arduous journey to healing and acceptance. But more importantly, grief knows no bounds.
I enjoyed the author's style. This is my first time reading Olumide Popoola and I think I want to read more. The story spans several decades and begins with the anniversary of Johari's death. The mixed narrative style helps me connect with each character on a different level. Nia's stream of consciousness is rich in self-reflection and introspection, but sometimes I didn't appreciate her going on for too long. I was almost annoyed that she built her entire existence on the loss of her sister, but then I remembered that I do not get to tell people how they grieve. It's not in my place even if they're fictional characters. But mostly, I love how she evolves over the years and I cannot help but admit that she is a formidable character.
So, if you love sad, reflective literature that explores the lives of women (queer, mentally brave, and Black) who are unpretentious in the way they approach life, then pick up Like Water Like Sea when it comes out in May. I cannot wait for more people to experience Nia's story.
Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC!
June 2, 2024
Thanks to Insta Book Tours for organizing the tour, as well as @olumide_popoola_writer and @cassavarepublicpress for having me on the tour of Like Water Like Sea.
I found this book extremely hard-hitting, especially when it deals with grief, depression, and the loss of a sibling, and to me, the loss of a parent in one way in the way the story has come across. However, we also go through self-discovery, love, and, as I said before, depression and other mental illness, which is why I found this book a hard read. I felt so many emotions while reading this book; I kept having to take a step away to go back to it. We have so many things hit, like pansexuality, mental health representation, mother's health representation, and self-discovery; each of these is hard-hitting in its own way.
I enjoyed the perspectives in this book, with Nia's perspective predominantly, but also sections near the start that explore the lives of her sister and mother. I further enjoyed the prose in this book, and it is really captivating.
Nia's perspective, along with glimpses into her sister and mother's lives, adds layers to the narrative. The author's prose is captivating, drawing readers into a world of complex emotions and challenges
#booktour #mentalhealthawareness #diversereads #emotionaljourney #familydynamics #bookcommunity #powerfulprose #mentalhealthrepresentation #selfdiscoveryjourney #empatheticwriting
I found this book extremely hard-hitting, especially when it deals with grief, depression, and the loss of a sibling, and to me, the loss of a parent in one way in the way the story has come across. However, we also go through self-discovery, love, and, as I said before, depression and other mental illness, which is why I found this book a hard read. I felt so many emotions while reading this book; I kept having to take a step away to go back to it. We have so many things hit, like pansexuality, mental health representation, mother's health representation, and self-discovery; each of these is hard-hitting in its own way.
I enjoyed the perspectives in this book, with Nia's perspective predominantly, but also sections near the start that explore the lives of her sister and mother. I further enjoyed the prose in this book, and it is really captivating.
Nia's perspective, along with glimpses into her sister and mother's lives, adds layers to the narrative. The author's prose is captivating, drawing readers into a world of complex emotions and challenges
#booktour #mentalhealthawareness #diversereads #emotionaljourney #familydynamics #bookcommunity #powerfulprose #mentalhealthrepresentation #selfdiscoveryjourney #empatheticwriting
May 30, 2024
This book...my opinions on it ebbed and flowed like the water that is a reoccurring theme throughout the story. A lot of the book was a bit disjointed for me. It's set in two timelines, with multiple POVs, and the past and other POVs are set in third person while the present is set in first person. And then we would jump ten years at a time with no separation between time periods in the current timeline.
And what was actually happening in the current timeline got a bit fuzzy at times for me too. From about 30% to 90% I was really invested, and then the ending just seemed like it was a dream-like state. I thought we were getting one ending, but then we ended up with a different ending? It ended up being one of those books that I questioned my ability to really comprehend the point of the book.
I think, at the base of this story, is just being human. Learning to connect with people through various relationships and also as those relationships change over time. Learning how one person can be many things - a good mother, a bad mother, someone doing their best. While I do have a lot of critiques about this book, that chunk in the middle and toward the end really had me in its grasp, and would make me consider recommending it to people.
And what was actually happening in the current timeline got a bit fuzzy at times for me too. From about 30% to 90% I was really invested, and then the ending just seemed like it was a dream-like state. I thought we were getting one ending, but then we ended up with a different ending? It ended up being one of those books that I questioned my ability to really comprehend the point of the book.
I think, at the base of this story, is just being human. Learning to connect with people through various relationships and also as those relationships change over time. Learning how one person can be many things - a good mother, a bad mother, someone doing their best. While I do have a lot of critiques about this book, that chunk in the middle and toward the end really had me in its grasp, and would make me consider recommending it to people.
June 6, 2024
“Dancing is a great way to allow the body to take care of your emotions.”
Nia, a naturopath living in London, is queer (bi/pansexual). Her mother, Susu, is diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. Her sister Johari’s tenth-year death anniversary is approaching. Nia is grieving her sister’s death, who committed suicide. Her father is Ben.
While swimming, Nia wanted to feel what drowning feels like. Two strangers named Rahul and Crystal passed by.
On a Friday night, when she went to a club, she didn’t inform Temi.
Melvin, her sister’s lifelong love, and Nia later start dating.
Nia’s sister’s 20th death anniversary significantly changes her life. In the later she understands herself. She heals eventually.
The book speaks in the past, present, and in the form of the third person. It begins from the 10th-year anniversary, then a decade later, and continues into her 50s. It shows how Nia copes with grieving, self-doubt, and much more. The author has wonderfully portrayed motherhood, grieving, family, friendship, and naturopathy. It’s a brilliant book. Nia questions herself how life would have been if her sister were alive. Later, she finds solace in speaking about it. I loved this book so much. I feel for Nia and what she went through. A must-read book for literature lovers.
February 4, 2026
Published by independent imprint Cassava Republic in 2024, ‘Like Water, Like Sea’ is an intimate story about a queer woman called Nia, who navigates grief, self-discovery, relationships and adulthood. Upon reading Like Water, Like Sea one can perceive there are queer stories, then there are stories that feature queer characters. This novel falls into the latter group. The protagonist grapples navigating adulthood in the aftermath of her older sister Johari’s suicide. She meanders through life, romance and career in a mercurial manner calling to mind the powerful portent of water. Nia is afflicted with bouts of mental health crises that hint towards an epigenetic inheritance.
‘Like Water, Like Sea’ feels deep. It reads like you are following an entire life, without frills, cliché or romanticism.
Read full review here: https://www.hararebookclub.com/home/r...
‘Like Water, Like Sea’ feels deep. It reads like you are following an entire life, without frills, cliché or romanticism.
Read full review here: https://www.hararebookclub.com/home/r...
March 12, 2024
Like Water Like Sea is a reflection on life and loss, grief and those left behind. Nia's mother, Susu, and her older sister, Johari, both suffer from severe mental illness. We find Nia living in the aftermath of Johari's suicide with both Nia and Susu in the depths of their grief.
While the story is clearly heavy, the style of writing is lovely and meditative, and while the healing journey is difficult, there is beauty in how Johari lives on through those she leaves behind.
We need more stories like this that show the diverse messiness of life. I'm grateful to NetGalley and Cassava Republic for the ARC. I will be placing an order for when it comes out in May, so that I can enjoy it more slowly on re-read.
While the story is clearly heavy, the style of writing is lovely and meditative, and while the healing journey is difficult, there is beauty in how Johari lives on through those she leaves behind.
We need more stories like this that show the diverse messiness of life. I'm grateful to NetGalley and Cassava Republic for the ARC. I will be placing an order for when it comes out in May, so that I can enjoy it more slowly on re-read.
September 8, 2024
The writing in this story was absolutely stunning, genuinely some of the most beautiful and thoughtful prose I’ve read in a long time. The themes in the story were important, hard and messy. All hallmarks of a great story, however this one just missed the mark for me. The vignette-style chapters felt a little stilted which may have been intentional but it made it difficult to connect with the characters at times. I think it needed to be pulled together just a little more tightly, sometimes this felt like an intentional creative choice but other times it just felt like a lack of editing. Overall though, I feel like this was an interesting exploration of grief, family trauma, mental illness and sexuality.
August 1, 2025
I had the fortune of meeting the author through the book club I’m a part of. This gave me a nuanced understanding of what the book meant and where it came from.
My first impressions of the book were organised chaos and feeling like I was hearing someone’s intrusive thoughts. That’s what grief is in real life though, rarely ever orderly and as expected.
There is exploration of grief and its impact on the different characters: Susu, Nia, Ben and Melvin. The falling apart as individuals but sometimes, coming together.
My first impressions of the book were organised chaos and feeling like I was hearing someone’s intrusive thoughts. That’s what grief is in real life though, rarely ever orderly and as expected.
There is exploration of grief and its impact on the different characters: Susu, Nia, Ben and Melvin. The falling apart as individuals but sometimes, coming together.
February 3, 2024
This book is a reflective piece about grief and the loss of a family member. Check the content warnings!
First, let me just say, name twins! That’s as far as the joy goes, as the story takes us on an introspective journey on life after a painful death. It’s lyrical, it’s hopeful, and it shows how choosing happiness can make all the difference.
Thank you to NetGalley and Cassava Republic for this ARC.
First, let me just say, name twins! That’s as far as the joy goes, as the story takes us on an introspective journey on life after a painful death. It’s lyrical, it’s hopeful, and it shows how choosing happiness can make all the difference.
Thank you to NetGalley and Cassava Republic for this ARC.
May 23, 2024
This book covers some really intense topics - bereavement, mental health, self discovery and love.
The author did a great job of bringing together these complex issues in a way which was empathetic but doesn’t distract from the real challenges people living with these issues face.
This is an emotional read and not easy at times but it had real impact.
This novel is hard hitting, raw but very well written.
I will be thinking about this book for a long time
The author did a great job of bringing together these complex issues in a way which was empathetic but doesn’t distract from the real challenges people living with these issues face.
This is an emotional read and not easy at times but it had real impact.
This novel is hard hitting, raw but very well written.
I will be thinking about this book for a long time
January 13, 2024
Great lit fic with some awesome ideas and plot. I’d give it a 4 ish I think! It’s promising. Thanks for the arf
August 6, 2024
Didn't enjoy my time with book. Just not for me at all.
December 28, 2024
Brilliant in it’s entirety
August 14, 2024
Based in London, the book centres around a queer woman called Nia. Initially we meet Nia at the 10 year anniversary of her sister’s death.
Her mum (SuSu) suffers from Psychosomatic disorder, experiencing manic episodes from time to time.
Initially the structure and the alternative POVs made it difficult to keep up with everything.
However, I really enjoyed Nia’s journey of finding and understanding herself, as well as processing her feelings and grieving
It was also interesting to read about the impact Johari’s death had on the mother. She would remember little details/triggered by certain things, struggling with depression and guilt.
I would’ve liked more information on the backgrounds of the parents. We get glimpses here and there, but I wanted the book to delve more into the pregnancy and the situation in Gaza.
Nonetheless, the book does really well in exploring themes such as mental health, sexuality and racism in particular for me.
Her mum (SuSu) suffers from Psychosomatic disorder, experiencing manic episodes from time to time.
Initially the structure and the alternative POVs made it difficult to keep up with everything.
However, I really enjoyed Nia’s journey of finding and understanding herself, as well as processing her feelings and grieving
It was also interesting to read about the impact Johari’s death had on the mother. She would remember little details/triggered by certain things, struggling with depression and guilt.
I would’ve liked more information on the backgrounds of the parents. We get glimpses here and there, but I wanted the book to delve more into the pregnancy and the situation in Gaza.
Nonetheless, the book does really well in exploring themes such as mental health, sexuality and racism in particular for me.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews