Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Find Me

Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Find Me by André Aciman

21 reviews

_maia3_'s review against another edition

reflective 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

2.75

Find Me is arranged in multiple parts, with the first two being the longest by far. These deal with Samuel’s new love who is a much younger woman, and Elio’s new love, a much older man. I was able to buy into Samuel’s story as a “sometimes you find love in odd places” since the characters seemed to have some chemistry, but Elio and Michel had exactly none, and it was at this point that I grew tired of the age gap relationship trope this book seems to rely on.

Whilst in parts a beautifully reflective piece on time, death, the “correct path” in life and most notably, ageing, it was overshadowed by what felt like a compulsive need to write in an unconventional love story. The strength of CMBYN was the fact that the sex seemed intimate and earned, here it is superfluous. However, once the book moves onto Oliver it gets stronger as we get a glimpse of his life still haunted by the Italian Rivera. Unfortunately, the book ends not long after.

This isn’t really a continuation of Elio and Oliver so much as a reminder that life isn’t a straight line, time is a loop, and that life is too short to stay unhappy (with random unconvincing love stories thrown in).

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stevia333k's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad

Strong character development? Yes

4.0

Let's just say on somethings that my taste hasn't been good. Like I read a book review on Goodreads about "the bookseller's boyfriend" that pointed out so many negative aspects of that book which I agree with but hadn't caught on to & my review was like this book is cozy this book is blah blah blah, so when I give this 4 stars, know it could easily be 1 star. My distress level is chronically high. (I've learned about the day I wrote this review that the name for this level of distress is "numbing".)

I listened to this book at triple speed. There was an interview at the end that mentioned armie hammer as Oliver, so that's interesting. Also the author said they wanted a mercenary approach to writing.

This book is severely amatonormative (which is literally in the name quite) and even uses queer sense of time to say the time dimension doesn't exist. I partly read this book so I could get more insight on how amatonormativity works & also to find out what happened to these people because I thought basically everyone except Elio was dead at the end of "call me by your name".

That being said, I think this book did a better job at exploring amatonormative grief than "call me by your name" did. Like the first book felt like trying to get more historical context for a fictional book, because it just felt like there was a lot of trauma that happened. Cbmyn is a very WTF kind of book. This book felt more grounded & comfortable with the grief even though it used queer time for essentialist instead of existentialist analysis.

That being said the Holocaust is explored in this book, because the 3 men are Jewish, so the grief of losing information about the dead... Ugh, just, that's the part that made me sob my ass off.

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dniespal's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

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

3.25

Well, even though its supposed to be a sequel for 'Call me by your name' it isn't really that... It's still a nice book, but not what you might expect. It mostly follows other story lines and characters. Also there are some wird dialogues...
But still a nice quick read if you don't bring any expectations :)

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jackeline_romeroo's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Aciman has reeled me in. After this second installment, my heart was pulled apart but then slowly put back together.

The drama and sorrow of “ Call Me By Your Name” follows me in this book. I love the way he wrote every character and the beauty of internal dialogue in this one. I had to whip out my highlighter and start annotating because I just adore the way he writes.

If you liked the first book then I would definitely give this one a chance! If you’re looking for a perfect ending with a bow on top then you clearly didn’t read CMBYN!

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thewordsdevourer's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

it does befuddle me quite a bit, but this wasnt as bad as i was expecting? or perhaps spoiling myself by reading the reviews--a first ever for me--rly helped tame any expectations. granted, i did refuse to read the first part aside from the last few pgs w/ elio--didnt need to ruin the cmbyn sami and learn abt his recent exploit of one-day romance, thank u--but the rest wasnt bad; if anything, it actually contained some nuances and sensibilities of its predecessor.

didnt rly see the point of the main story in 'capriccio', but 'cadenza' was surprisingly tender and touching, and 'da capo,' though definitely too short, was poignant and even a lil emotional. ofc nothing can trump cmbyn, but find me--its latter 3 parts anyway--does its share in exploring and eventually concluding elio and oliver's timeless, tender, unforgettable love story, one that i know would no doubt stay w/ me forever.

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elisee's review against another edition

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lighthearted medium-paced

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

2.5

I can't think of anything more disgusting than a relationship between a grown sixty year old and a young women, who he's only attracted to because she's not like other girls, she doesn't wear nail polish. Nothing made sense, and I can forgive that, but why does he break a cute father-son moment to introduce this random woman.

Elio's relationship could be better if the old man wasn't comparing him to his son every five seconds. The mystery was fun, and Elio's passion for music just does something to me, but the relationship is a hard no.

Oliver's story was believable, until he decided to run away from his entire family for a guy he hasn't seen in twenty years. And why is the half-brother named Oliver.

It's a no for me.

2.5 stars

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