Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Call Me by Your Name: Ruf mich bei deinem Namen

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Call Me by Your Name: Ruf mich bei deinem Namen by André Aciman

24 reviews

vneusc's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I can't decide if I hate it or mildly appreciate it. I have never been more uncomfortable in my entire life. I won't lie, I came into reading this book with expectations – expectations of a bittersweet and heartbreaking story of a forbidden love set in some idle town in Italy. For the most part, that's precisely what I got. But, what I did not expect, though it should not have surprised me, was that I would be privy to the romantic and sexual obsessions of Elio. And wow! did I hate every.damn.moment.

Bordering on creepy and obsessive, having to ~~listen to~~ read Elio's mental gymnastics as he lusted for Oliver nearly made me want to throw up, hurl, and actually step away from the story. If you came here, foolishly like I did, for some kind of bittersweet and forbidden romance then look away. This is a story of an insanely ~~horny~~ obsessive teenager and a slighty?? predatory guy

Spoiler

who managed to have sex with the entire town, including Elio's same-aged cousin

who both play mind games when really all they want to do... is

Spoiler

fuck each other

.

I tried, I really tried to like this book. And, yes, there were some parts where I understood why it's so loved, but I don't know if those fleeting poetic moments outweigh the utter disgust and loathing I experienced while reading this book. I'll leave my "favourite" quotes from both sides of the spectrum and you can decide for yourself if this book is really worth reading. Marking for spoilers because you don't deserve to read what I read so beware 3

Poetic or pretentious?

He came. He left. Nothing else had changed. I had not changed. The world hadn't changed. Yet nothing would be the same. All that remains is dreammaking and strange remembrance.
We belonged to each other, but had lived so far apart that we belonged to others now.
Perhaps we were friends first and lovers second. But then perhaps this is what lovers are.
Time makes us sentimental. Perhaps, in the end, it is because of time that we suffer.
We had found the stars, you and I. And this is given once only.

Regretful passages

The firm, rounded cheeks of the apricot with their dimple in the middle reminded me of how his body had stretched across the boughs of the tree with his tight, rounded ass echoing the color and shape of the fruit. Touching the apricot was like touching him...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 body...if I dared to bite that far, his apricock.
Spoiler
The bruised and damaged peach, like a r*pe victim, lay on its side on my desk, shamed, loyal, aching, and confused, struggling not to spill what I'd left inside.
I kept repeating to myself, looking inside the suit for something more personal yet than his smell and then kissing every corner of it, almost wishing to find hair, anything, to lick it, to put the whole bathing suit in my mouth
I put his pillow over my face, kissed it savagely, and wrapping my legs around it...It took less than a minute
Spoiler
I wanted him dead too...If I didn't kill him, then I'd cripple him for life, so that he'd be with us in a wheelchair and never go back to the States. If he were in a wheelchair, I would always know where he was, and he'd be easy to find. I would feel superior to him and become his master, now that he was crippled.

If having a weird obsession with skin, feet, and fruit; sniffing and wearing someone else's bathing suit, and fantasising about hurting a man for power and control is poetic then I don't want it.

p.s. ~~as much as I love Armie Hammer,~~ I do not recommend listening to the audiobook and having the man who is supposed to play the movie adaptation of the love interest read to you Elio being horny all while you're doing the dishes.
p.p.s. I really hope the movie will be worth the trouble of reading this...
all the p.s. i hate myself for reading this.
p.s. i wonder if Oliver has any redeeming qualities. after all, this is all told from the perspective of Elio. on second thought..?
update. armie hammer sucks ass and i can only wonder how timmy felt on set with this excuse of a man :/

Content Warnings

cgibson25's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

Content Warnings

kaadee's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

After reading other peoples reviews, I have come to a conclusion. I think it’s important that this book was made because it gives a glimpse into the the thought process of the groomed. We as readers know that it’s gross, uncomfortable and upsetting and while Elio also realizes this, his feelings are much different. Through Elio’s thoughts, we are also being groomed by Oliver to care for their relationship (see other peoples reviews calling this an amazing love story) it’s a good story, but not one about love. It’s about obsession, it’s about craving an experience but ultimately it’s about the power imbalances teenagers have with adults. How teenagers are easily taken advantage of and made to think they are in love. I honestly don’t think the writer wrote it to have this kind of meaning whatsoever which makes it worse for me. The deep dive into Elio’s sexual thoughts was disturbing. I mean, I really didn’t need to know what a 17 year old was thinking while he was going at it into a peach. I think it’s important to understand his thoughts but the amount of detail into the desires was gross. Also the writing style??? What pretentious person decided they would just add every word from the dictionary, put it into run on sentences, and then publish it? Some quotes were good but it’s too much philosophy without actually making any sense. People who praise this book for the writing and the feeling that you get while reading are weird. Honestly, the writing just made me want to finish it 10x faster just so I could be done. I love the movie compared to this. Also the fetish for Jewish people, GROSS!!! The author isn’t even Jewish which I didn’t know while reading. I was weirded out but I just went along with it because maybe he was just being expressive of his faith/background BUT NO, he just fetishized Jewish people.

Content Warnings

leahpardon's review against another edition

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funny sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I am…very conflicted about this book.

Content Warnings

earthlyfae's review against another edition

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Pretentious writing style masking as poetry. Trying to imitate classics while managing to be wholly boring and uninventive. Hypersexuality written in the grossest way possible, inexcusable age gap, unredeemable reference to r*pe, and overall felt disgusting to read. Do not recommend to anyone. I am queer and I am stunned that anyone liked this book.

Content Warnings

jem_carstairs's review against another edition

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//CW S/A AND R*P*

This book. I knew it was problematic going into it but i didn’t expect a full on r*p* scene. In addition to the 7 year age gap, which would be fine if one character wasn’t literally a minor. Plus, the fact that the younger character (i really can’t remember their names) is happy about what happened and hopes for it to happen again. Can we please not glorify S/A?

In addition, I just hated the writing style. I don’t know what it was about it, it was just really boring. If it was just that I disliked, I’d probably try again but I have no desire to reread *that* scene. And I really don’t want to know what comes next.

To be honest, it horrifies me slightly that this has four stars and is so popular.

Content Warnings

gabrielleclarke05's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective relaxing sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

Wow.. this was gross in multiple parts. Elio compared the peach to a SA victim🧐 I’m glad the film cut out the problematic bits. This book just felt like the author writing down his weird fetishes
The movie overall is better and this book just felt creepy and the author is a self proclaimed pedophile so take that as you will

Content Warnings

luluslittlelibrary's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad 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

0.5

I did not like this book. First, the age gap is really concerning. This book is definitely supposed to be a "first love" story (especially for Elio) but it isn't written correctly for that kind of story. It might have worked better if they were older (and had a smaller age gap) or if they had even a drop of chemistry. There relationship feels very forced and is clearly written by a straight man. The only good thing about this is the author's ability to write a beautiful setting and atmosphere of Italy.

Content Warnings

k_aro's review against another edition

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challenging slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

I read Call Me By Your Name over the spring break, and it took me about a week to slog through. Every few sentences I wanted to switch over to a food YouTube video just to get a break from it: the sentences are unnecessarily flowery, Elio does not sound like a 17 year old, and there is deeply concerning content (aside from the adult/minor relationship) that makes me feel as though CMBYN is really the Fifty Shades of Grey of queer content.

(Discussion of sexual content ahead, folks, there's only so much I can keep PG-13 when comparing a literal erotica and a quite sex-involved book.)

Which is to say, the author of FSoG clearly had no idea what a healthy BDSM relationship looks like, or even what BDSM should be like, and it was written for the "vanilla" sex gaze (and by that, I mean that people unaware of what sex beyond like, light dirty talk). Either it was titillating because it was a new experience, or it was grotesque in almost how divorced from what 'normal' sex looks like to this vanilla sex gaze. In a similar vein, CMBYN is written for the heteronormative gaze: its relationship is intense, unhealthy if you know what to look for (and even if you don't), and horny to all hell. It's for people who want to see what they want to see in a mlm relationship (constant horniness, unabashed obsession wth each other) OR, it's deeply grotesque and fulfills what one already believes about mlm relationships.

But, yet another similarity, FSoG and CMBYN never go deep enough to belong in a space of deep intensity that can sometimes be desired. Elio is obsessive, sure, and he has a deeply warped sense of what a healthy relationship is, but it's never Killing Stalking levels of intensity. If André Aciman wanted to write a novel about the deeply problematic nature of obsessive love, he could've gone harder... as it stands, I just have to assume this is what he thinks queer/MLM love is.

Also, the infamous peach scene, which is even worse in the novel when (sexual violence)

Elio compares the peach to a rape victim. No, I'm not kidding.

However... it did bring me an inordinate amount of joy to slowly reveal the real shitshow that Call Me By Your Name is to my friends, and simultaneously horrify them. So, 5/5 for that experience.

Content Warnings

leahvic95's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

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