While Elias Rodriques’s debut novel can be described as a meditation on memory, what makes it stand out from other novels is how Rodriques uses memory as a conduit for revealing and exploring identity ... an impressive debut about the intersectionality of identity and memory, revealing how where we live and who we love can embed themselves so deeply, there is no escape.

... poignant ... turns into an unexpected and inventive strain of what one might call millennial noir ... Each of Daniel’s interactions adds to a portrait of modern resignation while providing sly revelations that whisk the plot forward ... In some ways, Daniel embodies the noir antihero. He is aloof and cynical, and harbors a dark secret that ratchets up the suspense as much as his own investigation into Aubrey’s past does. Yet his character defies easy molds. The term 'intersectionality' hardly does justice to the cat’s cradle of his demographic markers and traumas ... Rodriques’s prose is as measured as it is nuanced. This gradually comes to seem less a stylistic choice than a means of survival for his protagonist: It isn’t until we meet Desmond that Daniel’s grip on language and self-modulation eases ... This and later scenes of dialogue with Desmond make for the novel’s strongest moments. As the two friends exchange hip-hop references, unsentimental confessions and ideas for 'all-Black heaven,' the familiar flow and biting wit of their banter help Daniel accept the inalterable nature of the past ... But toward the end, there’s an abrupt shift to a new narrator who suggests that Daniel and Desmond still lack 'the good sense to figure out what questions they need to ask to learn what they don’t know.' This removed perspective undermines the characters’ growth, along with virtues like resolve and hope. In keeping with noir cues — and a disillusioned generation — the future remains uncertain, beyond their control, subject only to forces as mutable as the Florida coastline.

...the novel breaks out into something far more interesting than a typical bildungsroman, a less clearly-charted story blossoming ... Rodriques brilliantly captures this sensation of old lives feeling excluded from 'new ones,' and how this is used to shape the narratives people that, like Daniel, tell themselves about their lives, which can be a very hard routine to extract oneself from ... The novel shuttles between his family history and Daniel’s current thinking, shaped by dialogue between characters. This is where Rodriques thrives—capturing real, genuine human speech, the cadence of how one speaks at home with old friends, versus in their new lives, away from the memories ... The novel at times drifts towards the kind of clichés that abide in fiction and coming of age stories—the need to get out, to make something of yourself, to escape the treacheries of a life you haven’t chosen. And yet, All the Water I’ve Seen is Running not only examines growing up, leaving home, changing, and then returning, but also examines how masculinity and maleness can ebb and flow depending on context ... In rhythmic prose that belies the seriousness of the topic, Rodriques examines what it is to reconsider male friendship in adulthood, to balance newfound beliefs and acceptances, and to understand that who someone was as a teenager isn’t the person they are now.

This study of grief illuminates Daniel’s sense of himself, his family, and his communal identity ... Rodriques writes with a dreaminess that reflects Daniel’s preoccupations with the intersection of memory and reality, past and present ... The complex layering of class, race, gender, and sexuality within the group reminds us that all is at play in relationships. Rodriques’ striking debut expands the geography of regional literature and convincingly demands acknowledgment of under-explored perspectives.

Though All the Water I’ve Seen Is Running tells a fictional story, its impetus and grounding in Florida are very much real; the only way to work through the grief of his friend’s passing was to write about the loss as if it was someone else’s ... Though written at a slant, the book’s narration has a kind of poetic realism to it ... Perhaps one of the greatest triumphs of the novel is that for all of the ways the story is shaped by the boundaries of class, race, space, and time, Rodriques shows a love that defies these—a love that in many ways feels boundless.

... poetic ... Rodriques sensitively depicts the complexities of desire and sexual identity ... Rodriques has captured in sharp detail this poor section of Florida and the dialect of Daniel’s social world ... a worthy addition to the group of fine recent novels about gay men of color looking for their own sense of racial and ethnic identity as well as meaningful connections with the people who love them. Rodriques’ novel also follows the work of many Southern writers in evoking a powerful sense of place and celebrating its language.

Plotwise, the novel is a coming-of-age story with something of the tenor of a mystery: Daniel returns to Florida to sort out why Aubrey was in a car with Brandon, an abusive and hard-drinking ex-boyfriend. But the novel’s tension comes from Daniel’s struggle to navigate the emotional and cultural baggage he brings on the trip ... The tail end of the book, which turns on Daniel’s emotional purging, runs at a somewhat disappointing low boil considering the visceral incidents that precede it. But Rodriques brings a lyrical touch to his hero’s inner life, making his past pains and present-day heartbreaks feel bone-deep.

... fresh and rhapsodic debut follows a group of Florida high school friends who reunite to rediscover the ties that still bind them ... This melancholy story is a startling and necessary addition to the canon of works that parse what it means to grow up in the American South.