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lonelyfern's review against another edition
1.0
I know this book has great reviews, but for me it was a total bust. I read only 1/3 and then skimmed the rest.
Way too much teenage angst and anexiety for me, the neverending pondering and stressing and wondering if the crush hates him or not got boring really fast.
The language was also much too descriptive, I felt like nothing ever happened and the boy just spent the whole book describing things.
Just a dreadfully boring book in my opinion, even though the premise was so promising.
Way too much teenage angst and anexiety for me, the neverending pondering and stressing and wondering if the crush hates him or not got boring really fast.
The language was also much too descriptive, I felt like nothing ever happened and the boy just spent the whole book describing things.
Just a dreadfully boring book in my opinion, even though the premise was so promising.
sergeanttsarcasm's review against another edition
1.0
I was reccomended this book and had heard so many good things about the film. However, i think that maybe the film is effective is that it doesn't include so much of Elios POV. I am sure that this child is a sociopath, from being happy if the corpse came up waterlogged to think of the peach he had sex with as a rape (loyal) victim. I am found the age gape a little difficult.
The book does make you feel things but i find that the actualrelationship is only like 30% of the book, the rest is longing. i found myself difficult to get throughand lost motivation to.
The book does make you feel things but i find that the actualrelationship is only like 30% of the book, the rest is longing. i found myself difficult to get throughand lost motivation to.
mettie_am's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Literally the best representation of soul devouring devotion and obsession. Amazing.
rybann's review against another edition
5.0
I do realize I’ve given so many books five stars this year but I’ve simply just hit the jackpot as of late. The first think I’ll say is that Timothee Chalamet was literally put on this planet to play Elio in the movie. The second thing I’ll say is that this story is so real and I just cannot imagine looking back and thinking that I wasted so much time. Living parallel lives cannot be a peaceful or happy way to live. “I remember everything,” gets me every. single. time.
brandification's review against another edition
5.0
This book ruined my life in the best possible way. Having been that 17-year-old deeply infatuated by someone, the author captured the feelings and thoughts perfectly. The final paragraph continues to stick with me long after closing the book.
batrock's review against another edition
2.0
This is what we call a bad book.
Rather than being a conventional review, this one should begin with a couple of choice quotes.
At the time, this was terrible; now, two days later, "apricock" appears to have entered my vocabulary. It's not literature.
This one is just disgusting. I'll spare you the semantics of the passage in which the protagonist copulates with a peach and then feeds it to his love interest, as long as you know that it happens between the pages of this book. And it's not even supposed to be some sort of weird gay fetish depository, but rather the distillation of six weeks in one teenager's life.
Unfortunately, Aciman is not only slightly perverted (and, by extension, a caster of aspersions on the proclivities of homosexuals the world over), but he also believes that six weeks in the summer of one's seventeenth year can irrevocably ruin your life. While this is true of some events, and the six weeks are undeniably formative, the experiences of Elio are the sort of thing that you're supposed to learn and grow from, not the sort that you're supposed to wallow in well past your fortieth birthday.
One gets the impression that Call Me By Your Name was written solely for the sake of the final paragraph, but there are 248 pages to wade through to get there and the "lesson" that we come away with is more frustrating than it is meaningful.
So what is this novel about? Call Me By Your Name describes an Italian summer in the mid eighties, where a seventeen year old boy decides to finally sort of confront his homosexual desire when he meets the summer lodger, 24 year old American philosophy student Oliver. The relationship that they forge is initially devoted to wasting time (as denoted by the "apricock" sequence), and then it crescendoes into the unorthodoxies that Aciman believes constitute closeness and devotion (peaches and mutual toilet use). Cut to the epilogue which shows that Elio has learned nothing, and that the reader cannot possibly glean what he has done with the intervening time.
Most of this is laid out from the first pages: this book is never going to end romantically sound for its lead. However, one should not subscribe to the idea that you only ever get one chance to fall in love, because if you fall in love at 17 for six weeks, what are you going to do with the rest of your life? Hang around and mope?
An argument can and has been made for reading this through the Proustian prism, taking it as an example of the power of memory to transform us. I've not read Proust and it's probably an insult to him to suggest that Aciman is one of his bedfellows. This is less a piece of literature than it is an essay on fetishism and the ability of the human spirit to repeatedly crush itself.
Aciman takes every opportunity to alienate his audience with this tale of the idle rich and their imaginary problems; there is very little here for anybody.
Rather than being a conventional review, this one should begin with a couple of choice quotes.
It would never have occurred to him that in placing the apricot in my palm he was giving me his ass to hold or that, in biting the fruit, I was also biting into that part of his body that must have been fairer than the rest because it never apricates - and near it, if I dared to bite that far, his apricock.
At the time, this was terrible; now, two days later, "apricock" appears to have entered my vocabulary. It's not literature.
We had never taken a shower together. We had never even been in the same bathroom together. "Don't flush," I'd said, "I want to look." What I saw brought out strains of compassion, for him, for his body, for his life, which suddenly seemed so frail and vulnerable. "Our bodies won't have secrets now," I said as I took my turn and sat down. He had hopped into the bathtub and was just about to turn on the shower. "I want you to see mine," I said. He did more. He stepped out, kissed me on the mouth, and, pressing and massaging my tummy with the flat of his hand, watched the whole thing happen.
This one is just disgusting. I'll spare you the semantics of the passage in which the protagonist copulates with a peach and then feeds it to his love interest, as long as you know that it happens between the pages of this book. And it's not even supposed to be some sort of weird gay fetish depository, but rather the distillation of six weeks in one teenager's life.
Unfortunately, Aciman is not only slightly perverted (and, by extension, a caster of aspersions on the proclivities of homosexuals the world over), but he also believes that six weeks in the summer of one's seventeenth year can irrevocably ruin your life. While this is true of some events, and the six weeks are undeniably formative, the experiences of Elio are the sort of thing that you're supposed to learn and grow from, not the sort that you're supposed to wallow in well past your fortieth birthday.
One gets the impression that Call Me By Your Name was written solely for the sake of the final paragraph, but there are 248 pages to wade through to get there and the "lesson" that we come away with is more frustrating than it is meaningful.
So what is this novel about? Call Me By Your Name describes an Italian summer in the mid eighties, where a seventeen year old boy decides to finally sort of confront his homosexual desire when he meets the summer lodger, 24 year old American philosophy student Oliver. The relationship that they forge is initially devoted to wasting time (as denoted by the "apricock" sequence), and then it crescendoes into the unorthodoxies that Aciman believes constitute closeness and devotion (peaches and mutual toilet use). Cut to the epilogue which shows that Elio has learned nothing, and that the reader cannot possibly glean what he has done with the intervening time.
Most of this is laid out from the first pages: this book is never going to end romantically sound for its lead. However, one should not subscribe to the idea that you only ever get one chance to fall in love, because if you fall in love at 17 for six weeks, what are you going to do with the rest of your life? Hang around and mope?
An argument can and has been made for reading this through the Proustian prism, taking it as an example of the power of memory to transform us. I've not read Proust and it's probably an insult to him to suggest that Aciman is one of his bedfellows. This is less a piece of literature than it is an essay on fetishism and the ability of the human spirit to repeatedly crush itself.
Aciman takes every opportunity to alienate his audience with this tale of the idle rich and their imaginary problems; there is very little here for anybody.
halahkatherine's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
katiegracedon's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I enjoyed the book; which I knew I would because I LOVE the film so I already knew part of the storyline. But I will say, I actually prefer the film!
I’m not a huge fan of how it’s only separated into 4 chapters because I hate leaving a book half way through a chapter. And the author likes to use A LOT of metaphors which in some instances is fine, but some where so long winded that by the end of the sentence I can’t even remember what he was going on about to begin with.
The main reason I prefer the film is because I feel like half of the book was taken up by Elio just pining after Oliver & the actual live story part was very brief. In the film, the pining part is cut a lot shorter & I feel like the actual love story is more focused on. The film doesn’t drag it out as much. However, I do prefer in the book that it carries on after Elio finds out Oliver’s getting married & shows us their relationship after this; whereas in the film it ends with Elio finding this out.
I probably would’ve given it 4 stars if the first half of the book wasn’t all about Elio admiring Oliver from a far; it just felt like the author was repeating himself a bit.
I’m not a huge fan of how it’s only separated into 4 chapters because I hate leaving a book half way through a chapter. And the author likes to use A LOT of metaphors which in some instances is fine, but some where so long winded that by the end of the sentence I can’t even remember what he was going on about to begin with.
The main reason I prefer the film is because I feel like half of the book was taken up by Elio just pining after Oliver & the actual live story part was very brief. In the film, the pining part is cut a lot shorter & I feel like the actual love story is more focused on. The film doesn’t drag it out as much. However, I do prefer in the book that it carries on after Elio finds out Oliver’s getting married & shows us their relationship after this; whereas in the film it ends with Elio finding this out.
I probably would’ve given it 4 stars if the first half of the book wasn’t all about Elio admiring Oliver from a far; it just felt like the author was repeating himself a bit.
hannahkrapfl's review against another edition
2.0
Adored this movie but the book was a flop for me. Enjoyed the first half but it became unbearably dramatic and cringey. Elio needs to chill out plzzzzzzz