Reviews

Cercami by Valeria Bastia, André Aciman

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bustyphillips's review against another edition

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1.0

What the fuck. I--

nicolewiley's review against another edition

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3.0

good as a stand-alone book but terrible as a follow up to call me by your name.... it felt as though it was supposed to be an altogether different book, but cmbyn got popular while writing this so he just changed the character names and added 10 extra pages at the end for “closure”

kimberlyswalters's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

bessieking's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

tinusreads's review against another edition

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hopeful informative lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-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

Find Me is a supposed follow up story to Call me by your name. A continuation in the form of four short stories. In the first, and longest, story we follow up on Elio's dad Sami who meets Miranda on the train. They get into a long conversation that seems to last for days where they eventually become lovers. What I liked about this part was the intensity of Miranda and them fully indulging and exploring being together. When you meet someone and get instantly addicted to them becoming radical in that little bubble you create together.

The second story where we meet a grown up Elio who meets the older Michel I did not really care for that much. I found Elio to be quite irritating in his ways and the only thing that made this part interesting was the hunt for Léon. The ending where Michel know that Elio will eventually move back into the arms of Oliver was painful.

Next we meet up with Oliver again who has a wife and kids and has a farewell party because they are moving. The whole story is a mix of Oliver basically wanting to be intimate with all of his guests and this felt like a throaway story. It's nice that he still thinks of Elio I guess?

We end with Elio and Oliver suddenly being together again. But this being the shortest story of the four it feels so extremely rushed that it almost feel like André Aciman had to get rid of the burden of bringing the two together for fan service. Also why did Elio's dad have to die? And why does every couple have a huge age gap? I will never know.

jjuliaagriss's review against another edition

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1.0

WHAT?! I literally cannot believe that this book exists and I went into this knowing that Elio and Oliver don't show up until the last like 10 pages!

The first like 50% is from Elio's father, Samuel (or the endearing "Sami"), which I was excited about because I really liked his characterization in the first book. But WHAT DID I LITERALLY just read? IT was so cringey because it took all the bad parts of the "older man having a mid-life crisis meets manic pixie" trope and tried to make it digestible. Here are some truly standout scenes that is nothing but the author trying really, really, really hard to make us believe this meet cut is a once-in-a-lifetime-all-consuming-true type of love:

Spoiler

- Miranda calling his dick a lighthouse then wanting to GET A TATTOO OF IT NEXT TO HER VAGINA
- age ain't nothing but a number
- fucking only in true form aka no brushing teeth or showering, etc.
- she doesn't wear nail polish like ~other women~
- claim to want to move in/ have a baby together when they've known each other for less than a day (keep in mind that this is RARE for Mira bc she can't settle down)
- she can’t keep relationships and even her dad knows this
- Mira admitting her darkest secret to Sam (which was wanting her brother to fuck her at fifteen... HUH??)
- they both have these deep, raw, real, true emotional talks bc they just GET each other

It's literally painful to dredge through and there were many times I wanted to DNF this book. But I pushed through because I was eventually rewarded with Elio's chapters. But JOKES ON ME because it begins with Elio ALSO meet-cuteing an older man (who talks about his dad WAY TOO MUCH if you ask me) that turns into a weird "let's solve my dying father's request" to find out who this Léon character is. The only nice thing about this section was that adult Elio is still reminiscent of his teen years, and still pines for Oliver after all this time (cute but heartbreaking).

Oliver's section I didn't care about (bc he just talks about all these people at his going away party he wants to get with) UNTIL the piano moment. He then realizes, I guess the encompassing theme of the novel, that relationships are messy and constantly changing. But that the one constant in his life was and is Elio. Skip to the best parts of the novel - the ending LOL mostly bc we finally get to see our boys together again... for like 5 pages...

At first I gave this a 2 star rating but even the select beautiful quotes (that came from Elio and Oliver’s chapters) and the fact Elio and Oliver meet again doesn’t make this worth the read tbh.

I really feel like this should have been a standalone novel and not a sequel to CMBYN (mainly because I doubt I would have read it LOL). Let's just leave it at that.