Rosewater

In this book we follow Elsie, a 28 year old who has been evicted from her home, working a dead end job with dreams of becoming a spoken word poet and her journey of self discovery.
This book explores so many different topics: mental health issues, homelessness, sexuality, love, relationships with family and friends Liv Little has covered these while writing strong female characters that make me proud to be a woman. Elsie is a flawed and sometimes frustrating character, I was rooting for her but shouting at her at the same time.
An excellent debut, highly recommended. Thank you to NetGalley for the preview copy.

Quite disappointed with this one - I was hoping for some more lyrical prose and more interesting character/relationship development but this ended up feeling quite flat and driven mainly by a lot of plot that made it feel more fan fiction-y than anything else (the major plot point at the end being the best example of this). It still felt like there wasn't that payoff at the end between El and her love interest, and I felt like they would still have the problems that plagued them during their friendship troubling them in a relationship, though I enjoyed their chemistry. I would also have liked more from the side characters that pop up along the way. There's also a lot of cheating in this book - which is fine to include obviously - but there was no consequence of that or reason for it and it mostly felt like absolutely no one had any of their shit together relationship-wise and failed to get their shit together for the whole book even though they're all in their late twenties. I did think the poetry was lovely though and I'll be looking up more of Kai-Isaiah Jamal's work. But overall, not one I'd recommend, though I'm aware it's a debut and therefore don't want to write off the author or anything like that.

There were plenty of wonderful lines I could have included from Rosewater but this one from the author Liv Little’s acknowledgments really stuck with me: “I have poured my entire heart into this book, and I hope you have felt it”.

It reminded me of the amount of work and dedication it takes to write a book. To write anything. And the vulnerability that comes with putting your words out there for the world to read.

And Rosewater is a vulnerable book. Elsie is a writer and poet trying to make a living doing what she loves to do. She’s making mistakes along the way and falling in and out of love and relationships too. Her family don’t understand what she’s doing, why she doesn’t have a “vocation”. She sometimes finds herself asking the same question: what is she doing trying to make this artistic life work and is it worth it?

Rosewater is a powerful debut celebrating art and poetry, embracing who you are, and the pain of putting yourself out there for love and how joyful it can be if it works out and how heartbreaking if it doesn’t (not a spoiler).

What I found fascinating about the book is that Liv Little chose to collaborate with another artist on the novel and Kai-Isaiah Jamal wrote the poetry included for the character of Elsie. Such an interesting choice and a process for both that I’d love to learn more about.

Trust Dialogue Books to support new voices and creative ideas. Thanks to them and Netgalley for my copy. This is, as always, an honest review.

This beautifully-written, nag-champa-scented, blissfully lyrical novel follows free-spirited Elsie, who is surviving and not thriving in London’s Peckham where she works behind the bar in a gay club by night and determinedly writes poetry by day. She’s estranged from her family and uncomfortably discontent with her current lot: she’s also sleeping with her gorgeous co-worker Bea, torn as to whether this is a good choice or not, but finds herself unable to resist her colleague at the end of another hard shift at the bar. The book opens as bailiffs arrive at Elsie’s flat: left with nowhere to go, she reconnects with her old friend Juliet and moves into her flat’s proffered spare room, where Elsie wrestles with hard realities, continues to believe in herself and her art despite repeated rejections, and tries to ignore the flickers of their reignited friendship that are slowly transforming into full blown, unrequited love – but is that really a one-way street? A pacy, emotional, deeply evocative novel about friendship, feeling lost, and allowing yourself to be found where you least expect it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Dialogue Books for this ARC!
I really enjoyed reading this book! I loved the queer representation throughout and the evolution of Elsie's storyline through the focus on poetry to her relationship with Juliet. The style of writing had parallels for me of Caleb Azumah Nelson's Open Water - lyrical and soulful. I'd highly recommend if you're looking for a black queer love story to get lost in.

Rosewater by Liv Little was one of my most anticipated debut releases of 2023. Part queer romance, part coming-of-age, it promised a fresh new voice breaking into the scene in a fantastic collaboration between our much beloved founder of gal-dem and Dialogue, whose work I follow closely.

Rosewater follows Elsie, a poet in her late 20s whose life is falling apart: her landlord evicts her, her minimum wage job can't pay her rent, her poetry isn't getting published and she's still harbouring feelings for her friend Juliet while sleeping with her other friend Bea. I was excited to read about the life and love of a queer Black woman in south London, because god knows there aren't enough stories like this in the world, and I've admired the work Liv Little has done for a long time.

Unfortunately, I was very disappointed and shocked when reading this novel. The writing itself and dialogue was poor, and it felt like the whole novel needed a further structural edit. The concept of the story and characters were great, but I sadly feel like the writing and plot arc needed more work for it to be ready.

Thanks to Dialogue Books and Netgalley for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

A poignant and original dissection of the ‘starving artist’ archetype, with a healthy dose of toxicity in platonic, familial and romantic relationships. “Be gay do crime” but make it sapphic and self-victimisation. Elsie was a frustrating, but very human, protagonist with highly questionable decisions and tendencies. Despite that, you can’t help but root for her throughout. The final few chapters had my heart in my throat, I was quite literally reading them through my tears.

Beautiful debut and I can’t wait to read more of Liv Little’s work!

Rosewater is the debut novel from gal-dem founder and former CEO Liv Little.

Elsie is woken one morning to the sound of bailiffs banging on her door - she has one hour to vacate her flat. Panicking, Elsie turns to the only person she can think of who can help - her childhood friend Juliet.

As if things aren't bad enough already, El soon learns that her club job is at risk - her only guaranteed source of income. Juliet suggests cam work to her, as she makes a fortune performing online for strangers, but El's uncomfortable with the idea - she wants to write poetry full time.

Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this book. I felt for El, I understood that she felt lost and stuck at 28 and it was hard for her to see friends moving on and leaving her behind, but I also felt that she was dismissive (particularly about her friend's relationships) and unmotivated. She wanted to do poetry full time, but she also mentioned e-mails about overdue commissions. However, I also understand that motivation isn't always the easiest thing to lay your hands on after multiple rejections, so I did try to see things from El's point of view. She's described as sexy and funny in the blurb - I found her to be charmless. I loved her friendship with Maggie, an older queer woman, and wish that had been explored more, perhaps instead of some of the other plot points (like her Dad's relationships).

The actual poetry in the book, I loved, and I wish there were more poems included. They were beautiful, and I'd read a whole book of them right now if I could. Unfortunately, the poetry wasn't written by the author - they're the work of Kai-Isaiah Jamal.

The book was disappointing, but it has received rave reviews from others so if you had been looking forward to it, please don't let me put you off. Novels about Black queer love are important, whether some random white woman enjoyed it or not.

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC via Netgalley.

Rosewater follows Elsie, an aspiring poet living in London. At 28, she feels like a drifter who is completely unmoored from anything that could offer her stability. Trying to find the balance between relying on the ones who love her, and having her own independence, will Elsie ever find her place in the world?

Rosewater has many strengths, with its authentic array of characters that often feel reminiscent of people we know in our own lives. It also has a subtle discourse on sexuality and race, and with its flecks of existentialism, it proves to be a worthy addition to the ‘woman vs. the void’ canon.

Overall though, I did find the plot a little predictable and the ending unsatisfactory which affected my overall enjoyment of the book. I feel like near the end Little lost her voice and fell into cliches that are overused in literature.

I would still highly recommend this book as Liv Little is a very promising writer who definitely encourages important conversations and showcases a multi-dimensional protagonist who will act in some way as a mirror to us all.

I liked that this was a queer Black story, with observations on intersectionality, community, friendship, love and money. Unfortunately, however, even for a character-driven reader, I needed a plot which sadly never seemed to arrive and we were left reading about the mundane acts of watching TV and searching for a job.

Such a sensational read, if you pick up one book this year make sure this is it, or at least one of them. I really enjoyed this and highly recommend it.

On a recent bookshop crawl around London I chatted to 3 booksellers - the first didn‘t rate this book at all, and thought it needed editing, the second thought it was the best book ever about the queer, black experience and the third thought it was a ‘nice‘ romance.

I tend to agree with the third - it felt like a typical millennial love story. There was nothing ground-breaking in it, whereas it has been marketed as something new and exciting. To me, the MC‘s best friend was a far more interesting character than the MC and I‘d rather have read about her.

I liked it but didn't love it - perhaps a bit over-hyped for me and I'm not the target (millennial?) audience.

Little not of a slow start with this but I think it was me and not the book because I did fall in love with it by the end. A beautiful story about wonderfully loud and queer and unapologetic Black British people making a space for themselves in a world that doesn’t want them to. Elsie is a very relatable character and a lot of the time, it was easy to see myself in her. Also, an apt title. Great read.

I really enjoyed the pace of this book, it sucked me in right from the start. Raw, real and beautiful writing, great representation and poetry made this a highlight to remember!

The book opens with Elsie Macintosh being evicted by bailiffs from her tiny flat and things get worse from there. It’s fair to say that Elsie is living a chaotic life, bouncing from partner to partner, drinking too much, losing a job and finding floors to sleep on where she can. Her friend of last resort is Juliet who gives her a room while she tries to get her life together.

Elsie is also a performance poet but she seems determined to mess up that area of her life as well. It’s all a bit of a car crash and she’s not very good working out who to trust and who really likes her.

There are some good characters in the world where Elsie hangs out and it’s well described as a place where people do what they have to do in order to survive but there are always risks and when Juliet’s part-time job is exposed things come to a climax, as you might say.

In the end, everything turns out all right but it’s been a chaotic journey and, although it’s a gay one, it’s the same old story about a helpless and chaotic young woman systematically messing up her own life by bad decisions and choices who becomes good, maybe even saved, in the end. But then, that’s Jane Austen isn’t it?

Really enjoyed this. Absolutely sped through it without even realising, which is a testament to Liv Little's immersive writing. I loved these characters, the poetry, the ode to black, queer elders and history, and the all too familiar portrait of London.

Review: Rosewater by Liv Little

‘A deliciously gritty and strikingly bold debut novel about discovering love where it has always been. Rosewater is a beautiful ode to queer love and friendship, and a reminder that self-knowledge is often arrived at in the company of others.’

Gal-dem founder Liv Little bursts onto the scene with her long anticipated debut novel.

Reading Rosewater reminds me that THIS is why I read! To be transported entirely into a different life, a different situation with different challenges. To immerse myself into someone else’s experience in a way that could never happen otherwise.

Little writes in a visceral, immediate style, documenting the life of Elsie, a struggling young, black and queer poet. The novel dips and weaves effortlessly through the highs and lows of life and love as a twenty-something, set against the pulsating backdrop of London’s bedrooms, bars and streets.

Powerful and tender, funny and sweet, Rosewater is a sparkling debut.

The (beautiful) cover and marketing of Liv Little's debut novel, Rosewater, made me think it was going to be literary fiction, perhaps something akin to Raven Leilani's Luster. It would have been helpful to know going in that this is much more straightforward, and yes, I would shelve it next to Candice Carty-Williams's Queenie or Lizzie Damilola Blackburn's Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?, though it refreshingly turns away from the very heterosexual and heteronormative worlds of those novels. Elsie, the protagonist, is a British-Guyanese dyke and unemployed poet. At the start of the novel she's been evicted from her flat and forced to move in with best friend Juliet, who works as a teacher by day and cam girl at night. She's dealing with childhood trauma: her parents expected her to act as a carer for her two younger brothers and never paid her any attention in her own right, with the result that she left her home in Bristol and headed for London at sixteen. She's a bit of a player, cutting a swathe through women on dating apps as an adult just as she used to kiss a stream of girls in the toilets at school, but doesn't know how to get serious about a relationship.

Little's prose is serviceable, and I really liked how she depicts Elsie's queer community. Novels about queer women still too often forget that we seek out the company of other queer women, and Little shows us how Elsie draws strength from older lesbians like Maggie, as well as her occasional hook-up and permanent friend Bea. (I also thought it was brave of Little to depict Elsie's disappointment when she finds out that Bea is pregnant and entering a committed relationship with a man. Controversial, but real!) Rosewater is also much more sexually explicit than many lesbian novels, which tend to 'fade to black', and I felt this was an important part of Elsie's characterisation, given that sex is central to her life and the way that she sees herself, as somebody who is happy to have sex, is great at pulling women, but struggles more with emotional intimacy. These are perhaps dynamics familiar from other 'disaster women' novels, but it's so much more interesting when the protagonist is looking for other women rather than being used by unreliable men.

Near the end, though, Rosewater does struggle to deal with the multiple things it wants to talk about, and there are two plot twists that I thought were both unnecessary and melodramatic. The things Rosewater wants to do are more familiar to me from queer YA romance novels, and it is interesting to see the relatively greater complexity it attempts because Little is writing for an adult audience. Family dynamics are not tied up too neatly; Juliet, as well as Elsie, is allowed to be a mess; secondary characters, like Leonie, aren't boxed into 'bad' or 'good'. The dialogue feels a bit more realistic and less therapy-speak, as well. Still, it fell a bit short for me, and I suspect that Little's next novel will be better. 3.5 stars.

Rosewater is Liv Little’s debut novel and is equal parts a coming of age story and a contemporary romance. Billed as the next Queenie, I was intrigued, but apart from both stories featuring young Black women in their 20s living in London, I found them to be very different stories.

Elsie is our lead character. She’s a poet who is currently jobless, hoping to make a career out of her talent but applying for bar and waitressing jobs in the meantime. When she gets evicted from her flat, she moves into her friend Juliet’s spare room. Things are slightly tense between them as Juliet had previously told Elsie she has feelings for her. Elsie is gay but isn’t comfortable mixing friendship and relationships. Or really, isn’t yet comfortable fully reflecting on her feelings for Juliet.

Rosewater looks at the things that drive people – primarily money, sex and loneliness. They are universal and so even though these characters are exploring them through their own lens, they are resonating themes.

Rosewater was great as not only was Elsie a layered and complex character, but Juliet was really interesting too. Her life blends her career as a teacher with her other as an x-rated cam-girl. It’s interesting commentary on what jobs society deems acceptable and how two juxtaposing careers can exist together. Everyone has more than one side to their character, right?

Rosewater felt like it had two halves, the first being a quite visceral coming-of-age story (albeit coming-of-age slightly older as Elsie isn’t a teenager – although I liked that element as it’s not like people have their lives together just because they turn 20) then Elsie starts to open up a little and the romantic element blooms. The flow is so easy to read and – unsurprisingly given Elsie’s love for poetry – feels poetic in its conclusion.

It makes strong social commentary and covers a variety of themes, then the ending brings it all together in a much sweeter way than I think I was anticipating. You get so emotionally caught up in Elsie’s story, you both want her to get her break and just give herself a break. I found Rosewater to be really enticing, I like Liv Little’s voice and will look out for her future stories.

Rosewater tells the story of Elsie, a struggling, millennial, South-Londoner who, despite spending years writing poetry in diaries, never quite seems to make things work. Struggling to make ends meet, she finds herself in sticky situations and looks to her best friend who she has pushed away through self-sabotage.

This one is full of strong female characters, that I found relatable, with lots of great LGBTQIA+ representation and non-binary characters too.

I’ve seen this book compared to Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams and I’d say there are some similarities, but this is it’s own story and I couldn’t love it any more!

It covers some ‘heavy’ issues such as eviction and loneliness, but also friendship.

I burned through the digital pages, didn’t want it to end. It book made me hungry and also proud to be LGBTQIA+.