Book Review
Title: Call Me By Your Name (Call Me By Your Name Book 1) by Andre Aciman
Genre: LGBT, Romance, Historical
Rating: 4.25 Stars
I saw the movie for Call Me By Your Name advertised yet never watching it but I decided to pick up the book and I’ve also got the audiobook narrated by Arnie Hammer who stars in the movie. We are introduced to Elio who is staying at his family’s summer home in Italy and they are playing host to Oliver this summer. From the moment that Oliver arrives, Elio is enamoured with him although for the first week or so he believes that Oliver doesn’t like him when looking back on it he realises that both he and Oliver were flirting from the very day that he arrived. There is a slight age gap between them with Elio being 17 and Oliver is 24 and they have already been making subtle moves and gestures towards each other to gauge their interest but Elio is only resisting them because he isn’t 100% sure that Oliver feels the same way towards him but he is trying to figure it out.
The story is being told from Elio’s point of view so we are following his thoughts. The novel seems to be told in a stream of consciousness style so a lot of what we get is Elio’s thoughts and feelings rather than anything actually happening. Elio has realised being around Oliver that he is either gay or bisexual which seems to be against his religion as a young Jewish boy, which is something he shares with Oliver. As time passes, Elio becomes more and more infatuated with Oliver but he can’t even seem to talk to the man without stuttering unless it is about something they both study like music or books. As the weeks pass, Elio finds himself less and less able to keep himself under control and this leads to him taking risks he would never dream of taking otherwise but he is almost sure that Oliver feels something for him too but the tiny slivers of doubt won’t let him be open about it. For a brief period he also believes that Oliver might be involved with his cousin Chiara who has also found very beautiful at times but Oliver brushes this off. Elio struggles a lot with Oliver’s constantly shifting mood making him a difficult person for Elio to read but he delights in the challenge and is proud when he manages to understand a small part of Oliver’s personality but I was waiting for something significant to happen between them.
As the end of the summer is approaching with less than a month before Oliver leaves the summer home, Elio feels he has to try and do something in order to tell Oliver how he feels. Not out of romantic notions but so the shame that has been oppressing Elio can be taken away. He ends up taking Oliver to a secluded spot where they talk in riddles and half truths until they kiss more than once but Oliver is insistent that nothing more than that can happen between them. Elio believes he will be ok with it but he clearly isn’t but the silence between them is slowly suffocating him. He end sup throwing all of his time into a local girls even bedding her a few times and he finds that he doesn’t seem to care what Oliver thinks about it but he can’t get Oliver out of his mind. Eventually Elio is the one to offer the olive branch and Oliver wants to meet him at midnight. Elio is aware that they could possibly end up in bed together and thinks about whether he truly wants that and his answer isn’t yes or no but he wants to find out whether this desire Oliver stirred in him means anything but that doesn’t stop him from spending the evening with a girl before meeting with Oliver. We are halfway through the novel right now and I am sensing the appeal in the way the book is written but nothing has happened really yet but I have been warned about a few slightly more explicit scenes and I am waiting for them to arrive.
Eventually after some more back and forth, Elio and Oliver end up having sex which isn’t what Elio thought it would be as he is gripping my crippling self-loathing and self-doubt after the deed is done. For a brief moment he believes that his infatuation with Oliver has been satisfied and that it won’t happen again but it does and Elio comes to conclusion that there is more than lust between them even though neither of them will say what really is between them. Elio also notices that the signs he took to mean that Oliver disliked him was just Oliver being shy and trying to convey his meaning without saying it. Elio and Oliver have to be the shyest people on the planet with the way they have acted and honestly, Oliver did read some signs wrong as we know Elio flinched away from him after the tennis match because he didn’t want Oliver to see how much he desired him and Oliver read this as rejection. The pair have wasted a lot of their time together but both are conscious of the fact it will be coming to an end soon. Oliver is actually planning to leave a little early to visit Rome before flying home to America and asks to take Elio with him to his parent’s delight. Elio loves being in Rome with Oliver as they don’t have to hide who they are here and they can enjoy these final days together before they have to be separated. I also appreciated the fact neither who solely dominant or submissive and they frequently take turns in the bedroom and that at time Elio is the wiser and more knowledgeable of the two despite being the younger one. However, there have been a few questionable scenes like the peach scene that left me feeling a little uncomfortable but I am eager to see how the novel ends and what the sequel has in store for me.
The time Elio and Oliver spend together in Rome defines their relationship perfectly but it can’t last as Oliver has to leave. They speak several times over the years but the next time Oliver returns to Italy, Elio hopes that there will be something of that summer left but this is crushed when Oliver confesses he is getting married. We get brief snapshots of their interactions through the next twenty years and while Oliver is happily married and has children, Elio tries to forget is true love in others but he can never forget Oliver. There are several moments when they think about rekindling their relationship but this was the right life for them, they are a heart-breaking case of right person, wrong time. Maybe if they had the entire summer together and madly in love things would have been different or they could have been the same but they will never know. One thing I absolutely loved was how Elio’s father knows about him and Oliver and recognises the beautiful things they found and regrets that he almost found that but ran away from it and he builds a strong bond with his son over this. Overall, while there were some questionable moments and passages of text within Call Me By Your Name it was still a heart-breaking romance that gut punched me several times while reading and I honestly can’t wait to see what Find Me has in store for me.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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