User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
A friend of mine took me to a French film festival when I was in my 20s. The first movie we watched was about a creepy little 12 or 13 year old kid who stole a piece of raw liver from his mother's kitchen and proceeded to have
relations with it. He then returned the liver to the kitchen, where his mother lovingly (and none the wiser) proceeded to cook the organ meat for her family, and then we, the audience, were subjected to watching them all eat it. The little creep then got bored with stealing and sullying the family's groceries, so he started having relations with a neighborhood cat. It was at this point that I stood up and announced to my friend, “I'll be at the car. Join me when you're ready.”
That night that movie made it clear to me that we just don't need to sit through every program or movie or read through every book. Not every aspect of “art” is made for us in mind. It's true that sometimes we should consider stretching our comfort zones and not always abandon something because it makes us slightly uncomfortable. But, it may also be true that sometimes something is just plain disgusting to our senses.
This book,
Call Me By Your Name could fall into either (or both categories) depending upon your perspective.
My grandmother, who was born in 1923, was from a different time, and never, within her lifetime, became comfortable with the topic of homosexuality (to be honest, she wasn't all that comfortable with the topic of heterosexuality). Hers was not a religious bias, more a cultural one, but naturally many religious perspectives against homosexuality exist still today. This book would not have been palatable to my grandmother for that reason, and is not for everyone.
I, on the other hand, have no religious or cultural bias against stories that explore sexual relations between any consenting adults. And, the homosexual relationship that happens here is actually the most palatable one to me in the entire story. To be frank, I was cheering on the Elio-Oliver relationship right from the start.
THIS was not my problem. But, I'd LOVE to tell you what was.
First off, this kid Elio is the most unrealistic 17-year-old character (unless you want to include any character from
Jaws) I've come across in a while. Nothing about him seems legitimate, from his completely unrealistic grasp of translating the most difficult musical masterpieces to expressing insecurities about himself but then boldly proclaiming himself sexually to a man seven years to his senior. Absolutely none of his dialogue is believable and he remains a totally unformed character, from beginning to end.
AND. . . not only was I perpetually frustrated with Mr. Unformed and Mr. Inauthentic Voice, I then needed to journey with him on his secret, perverted mission of finding his Dreamboy's dirty bathing suit and rubbing it all over his face and then “kissing every corner of it,” only to find himself disappointed that he didn't find any pubic hair.
People, a creeper did this to my mother's dirty underwear in college and she and my father called the cops. Get it? That ain't sexy, that's creepy.
And then. . . oh boy. Now (grab me a Xanax, will you?). . . the peach scene.
Argh. Crumble. The peach scene on page 147 is where I closed the book and declared again, “I'll be at the car. Join me when you're ready.”
I'll try to spare you the spoilers and just say that, instead of raw liver, this young man sullies a very good peach, and afterwards thinks:
What a crazy thing this was. I let myself hang back, holding the fruit in both hands, grateful that I hadn't gotten the sheet dirty with either juice or come. The bruised and damaged peach, like a rape victim, lay on its side on my desk, shamed, loyal, aching, and confused, struggling not to spill what I'd left inside.
EXCUSE ME?? Like a “rape victim. . . shamed,
loyal, aching, and confused??” Shame on you, Mr. Aciman, for this disgusting and inappropriate metaphor.
You have pissed me off, sir!
Your book will remain UNFINISHED by me.
Rating: really liked it
This book is a fucking axe to the heart. But because my heart, perhaps yours, too, was broken long ago, no further damage can be done. So perhaps the book's more like a probe, yes, a very discomfiting probe, making a fuller assessment of the wreckage. The book is also a final report of the survey. Finally, one thinks, here’s someone who has not only plumbed the depths of heartbreak, but who’s taken excruciatingly detailed notes along the way revealing every nuance of the required self-abasement. The result is an astonishing catharsis for the reader.
This is what literature at its best can do. Think Aeschylus’s Oresteia, but with an all-mortal cast and without the choruses. I speak here of the novel’s sheer emotional power.
For most of the novel the narrative is the first-person thoughts, fantasies, worries, shames and fears of Elio in the summer of his 17th year. The young man is with his parents at their big comfortable summer house on the Italian Riviera. It’s the mid-1980s. The boy’s father is an academic and Oliver, 24, is a young American colleague exchanging some brief work as amanuensis for room and board while finishing his own manuscript. But in the marvelous, big-hearted Italian sense, Oliver, even if for only the six weeks of his stay, is very much a part of the family.
Women are alluring to Elio but they are not his predominant fascination this particular summer. Description is thin at first, almost transient, and because the reader’s not distracted by descriptive flights he or she never feels far from the anguish of Elio. Life’s first love is the theme, and this iteration is so fresh, so vivid and beautifully layered, that it’s not to be missed. Among the best parts of the novel are those passages in which Elio—before his intimacy with Oliver begins—imagines what he might say to Oliver, the multiple responses he might at any moment utter in Oliver’s presence, or imagined presence. Elio’s mind is racing with alternative scenarios. Is this even what he wants? He’s not sure but he wants to find out. Matters are thought out and after some new bit of action or information, rethought and modified. The technique reminds me of Philip Roth’s American Pastoral, in which circumstances are similarly considered then reconsidered. There is a mastery of tone here that constantly astonishes and bewilders.
Later in the novel, when the description intensifies, it’s as if it has been saved for just these moments of lovemaking, the confidential exchanges between the two in their subsequent walks and swims, their farewell in Rome, the devastating coda. It is the frankness between the two young men that to my mind constitutes the book’s magic. That something as amorphous as desire can be written about with such fluidity and integrity is near miraculous. The wrenching depiction of Elio’s new and utterly discomfiting passion consumes not only him but us as well.
In closing, let me say that this book is likely to resound more with those with some mileage on them (real or metaphorical). The prerequisite is suffering. One can’t imagine the novel’s insights and wisdom working their wonders on anyone who hasn’t at some time put everything on the line.
“In love’s service only the wounded soldiers can serve.” —Thornton Wilder
The end was simply excruciating yet I couldn't stop reading. Extremely powerful. I will reread this one soon. In terms of achievement, I place
Call Me By Your Name on the same shelf as Madame Bovary and Lolita and, yes, very near Aeschylus too.
Rating: really liked it
“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.”
I should probably issue a warning that this is a book I usually wouldn't like. I think. A summer romance up to its neck in purple prose and wandering introspection sounds like a nightmare. And yet, there was something so
beautiful, awful, intoxicating and sad about Call Me by Your Name. Maybe I like it because - and I hate to admit this - there is a part of me that recognizes something of myself within it.
Either you have been this kind of person, perhaps still are this kind of person, or you have not, are not, and this book will seem overwritten and alien. I, unfortunately, have experienced that deep, all-encompassing infatuation with another person. I don't personally call it love; not anymore. Instead, it's a feeling of overwhelming, almost feverish, obsession with their existence-- their body, their laugh, and everything they do or say.
I’m not proud of it and I don’t think it’s healthy. But I do think this book captures it in all its intensity and sadness. Call Me by Your Name, for me, stands apart from other romances because it doesn't follow the usual formula of two people meet, cliche flirtations and angst ensue, and then finally they end up together. It's not a spoiler to say this isn't that kind of story; if you're reading it for the warm fuzzies then you're going to be disappointed.
It is about seventeen-year-old Elio, who falls into a deep romantic and sexual obsession with the twenty-four year-old Oliver when the latter becomes a summer guest at Elio's parents' Italian villa. If there was ever a perfect place to set a heady novel of this kind, then it must be the cliffs of the Italian Riviera. I can feel my cold heart melting just thinking about it.
We stay inside Elio's mind as he fantasizes romantically and sexually about Oliver. Aciman builds a novel based on innermost thoughts and the most painful of emotions. It is sometimes almost too much and I wanted to look away as Elio feels like he can’t get close enough; feels like he wants to crawl inside Oliver's skin.
It’s an intoxicatingly romantic, intimate, physical, miserable experience.There is one moment when Elio's wise father comforts him: “Right now there’s sorrow. I don’t envy the pain. But I envy you the pain.” Which I thought was deeply sad, though also perfect. It might not be my usual choice of book, but I think Call Me by Your Name is one that will stay with me. Sometimes it is the exceptions to my rules that I find myself remembering the most.
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Rating: really liked it
2.5 starsAs a gay man, I feel happy seeing queer intimacies receive more acceptance and popularity, as evidenced by this book's film adaptation this year. I appreciate the pulsating emotions of lust and desire in
Call Me by Your Name, even if my own first crushes did not manifest into much of anything. However, I struggled to get into this book. The writing felt too distant, intellectual, and heavy for me to immerse myself in Elio and Oliver's world. The book contained so much introspection and I wanted more scenes, to get us into these present moments with the two lovers. And while I understand that the book aims to portray infatuation, I found myself bored at times with Elio's obsession with Oliver. Could he have thought some more about the healthfulness or unhealthfulness of his feelings for Oliver? Or could Andre Aciman have included more details about these characters other than their feelings for one another, to make them both more three-dimensional? I wish we had received more from these characters: more dialogue, more development, and more insight into their desire for one another.
Overall, an okay book that I am curious to see as a film, as I predict the movie may better portray the emotions of the book through lush and/or lustful visuals. If you want a high-quality gay romance this holiday season, check out
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara,
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz , and
Imagine Me Gone and
You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett. Still, yay for a gay romance garnering attention, even if it does feature two white leads and conventionally attractive characters.
Rating: really liked it
“If I could have him like this in my dreams every night of my life, I'd stake my entire life on dreams and be done with the rest.” This book has been on my to-read list for a few years, but now that the film is set to be released, I believed it was time to get going and pick it up once and for all. From what I had seen of the film - that is shirtless Armie Hammer and not much else because I wanted to read the book before even watching the trailer - and from what I had heard about the book, I was up for a promising and exciting read. Oh, and a gay one, too.
To be blunt, I expected more. More emotion most of all. Longing and sexual frustration dominated most of the novel, but I was looking for dramatic heartbreak and high emotions. Maybe a tear or two. Maybe I didn't connect enough with Elio, the main character. Sometimes I even disliked him. Then again I understood his aching and longing for a guy that seemed so very much out of reach.
What bothered me most was the highbrow narrative style, the thousands upon thousands of cultural references to literature, music and art. I felt like someone had slapped me with a travelling guide and a Latin dictionary over and over again. It seemed pretentious and took away my interest in the novel.
The writing was beautiful at times and overwhelming at others. Sentences were much too long and seemed never-ending. Pretentious, again.
I can't decide if I want to give this two or three stars - I might change the rating again later. It's not that I disliked the novel, on the contrary, sometimes it was like a dream: Italian food prepared by a personal cook, strolling on the beach, lazing around in the sun, handsome and interesting people around night and day. The openness with which Aciman wrote the gay sex scenes surprised me positively. But especially towards the end, it almost bored me, for reasons that I already mentioned above.
However, I have high hopes for the film adaption. It has the chance to develop the feelings and the relationship between Elio and Oliver much better and to actually make me feel something.
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Rating: really liked it
I've put off writing this review for far too long because I'm afraid I won't do the book justice. I want to write a review that makes everyone drop what they're doing and start reading Call Me by Your Name immediately.
Reading the other reviews, I find a lot of polarization about Aciman's writing style, which I loved. Some people find him pretentious, while others find his prose bordering on poetic. I definitely fall in the latter category.
Most books are read for a good story and I understand that, but other books, like this one, are read for the enjoyment of language. What I mean by that is that a great many of the sentences in this book can be read and enjoyed all on their own because they're so beautifully written. Aciman has obviously labored over his phrasing to the point that I found myself often stopping to reread a sentence a few times and just luxuriate in the warm bath of words.
The story itself is great because it really has the ring of truth. The characters in this book are far from perfect and sometimes infuriating. I won't discuss plot other than to say that it is bittersweet and just real. I think any gay man will see his young self in the protagonist.
So, in summary, read this book!
Rating: really liked it
2022 review:
I read this in southern Italy (perfect spot if I ever knew one) and, I must say, it wasn’t as good as I remember it being. That’s not to say it’s not good, but I remember it being better. I love the writing, the precepts, how Aciman focuses on the tiniest moments. So much of this book is internal. It’s not things happening, really, but the possibility of them happening which is much closer to real life where we’re so contained in our thoughts. He does interesting things with form and speech which you only really realise towards the end which is cool (I love that Oliver and Eliot’s relationship is represented in so many things other than words).
Definitely worth a read. Maintain that the final part is one of the best things ice ever read x
2020 review:
Aciman's writing is rich and quiscent. Past, present and future intercept in Call Me By Your Name, and I love that this book is etched with memories which are immediate and distant at the same time. Just like Elio and Oliver's relationship which is both carnal and abstract.
One of the best final few pages of any novel I've read.
Rating: really liked it
[Sufjan Stevens playing softly in the distance]
Rating: really liked it
How wonderful it is when you find a forever book.
We're all Elio, aren't we?
Rating: really liked it
4/5 Stars ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
“We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything - what a waste!”
Phew! What an intense book, what an intense ending. Hello people, I hope you remember this lass here, I haven't written a single review in almost
6 months. Which is the entire period of my internship, the one that's almost ending now. So I picked up reading again, how fucking happy that makes me you have no idea. So, back to the chase.
Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during the restless summer weeks that follow, unrelenting buried currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire, intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them. What grows from the depths of their spirits is a romance of scarcely six weeks' duration and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy.My experience with this story starts with the movie. Yes, I committed the dreadful sin of watching the movie before reading the book. And yes, I'm a bookworm.
FUCKING ARREST ME ALREADY, BITCH. But anyway, I watched the movie, fell in love, bought the book with a 5 euro deal from Book Depository, fell in love again. You see, this book has no plot. I hate books which contain no plot, and things just happen without a specific order or reason. But this book worked because it entailed no plot. This book conveys in us the raw and true and sinful emotions and feelings of Elio, a very special and intricate character, which at the age of 17 falls in love with a 24 year old man. What is more beautiful than this? His emotions are so real that they take form, we can smell them, eat them, feel them ourselves.
This book was so mesmerizing, the writing was so poetic and John-Greeny at times, but it suited it. This kind of writing was needed, otherwise the book wouldn't be as gripping as it was. The ending absolutely and irrevocably annihilated my feelings. This ending wasn't included in the movie, it was something entirely new to me and I don't know how it will work with an alleged sequel I'm hearing is at works, but i'm excited to know the outcome.
I truly hope, we will all find love like this in our lives. Their love moved me in many aspects, and I wish love just like this exists in this world. I want people (and myself) to feel this love to their bones, and always feel young because of it. Anyway, till the next one K BYE!
Rating: really liked it
I wanted to kill him myself . . . If I didn't kill him, then I'd cripple him for life, so that he'd be with us in a wheelchair . . . 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.
Ah yes, this is a psychological thriller in which we delve deep into the mind and thoughts of a stalker. Err, you say this is a romance? Ok, you've lost me.
Let me just come out and say it:
Call Me by Your Name is awful. It reads like the obsessive, icky, slavish ramblings of an unbalanced teenager rather than the beautiful romance I was promised.
In order to have an enjoyable romance, I need to be able to relate to the characters. Unfortunately, I did not relate to a single person in here. It's unclear why the boys liked each other, other than pure physical attraction:
To think that I had almost fallen for the skin of his hands, his chest, his feet that had never touched a rough surface in their existence—and his eyes, which when their other, kinder gaze fell on you, came like the miracle of the Resurrection.
Yes, the book really reads like that, all of it. Elio analyzes every small action, glance, word, and absence from Oliver. And then he obsesses over them. And leaves clues for Oliver, ones that are certain to be creepy and criminal. And it just gets worse from there.
If this were a thriller about the inner workings of an unhinged stalker, I would understand. But I just cannot believe that this is supposed to be a romance, and the other person would reciprocate such desperate and inane infatuations.
It doesn't help that the writing style is so overwrought and full of itself. It's stuffed with references to obscure old writings and music, none of which I knew.
I don't understand how this book could be so highly rated. It was awful purple prose at best and romanticizing criminal behavior at worst. Unless you somehow like the passages I quoted above and can relate to them, it's probably best to avoid this book.
Rating: really liked it
I wanted to make fun of this maddening book, but really, I must just want to make fun of myself for loving it. The bare bones of the story could have been assembled using some kind of Gay Coming of Age Novel Trope Generator. Teenager. Grad student. Italian beach. Fruit. Poetry. Jealousy. Sex. Loss. More poetry.
But. I agree with whoever likens Aciman's approach to Proust's (which is probably everybody who has read both Aciman and Proust.) This is not a Gay Coming of Age Novel, at all; it's an elegy for desire, for memory itself; and it manages to visit that interior terrain of longing most notably visited by A LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU, without begging a side-by-side comparison. (Which is a feat in itself. What novelist could really survive a direct comparison to Proust? Best to avoid it.)
The frustrations of the novel only become apparent once the spell of Aciman's spare but lovely prose has been broken. While reading it, I never thought to sneer at the clichés, or at the problems of a seventeen year old child of wealthy intellectuals. I was too entranced by the salt breezes and the sunlit stones, and the daily rituals of swimming, breakfast, dissertation work, coffee, dinner guests, town, bed, and the millions of specific new shades of pain that result from each and every moment spent around, and away from, the narrator's object of desire. There are some story frustrations here, to be sure, but from this book, I was only expecting a bit of light escapism for my subway ride. My expectations were so successfully shattered, it was almost uncomfortable to read it in public.
"This novel is hot," wrote NYT reviewer Stacey D'Erasmo. Hell, yes. The heat here is not the heat of sex acts, however, (though there is that) but the heat of an ever-building, single-minded, raw-gutted longing, and the pain of remembering it. The heat is the agony of obsession, when any solitary glance or casual exchange can be sharpened with two, three, ten edges of conflicting meaning.
I don't know that I've ever read a book so relentlessly accurate in its detailing of each precise doubt and hope, but mostly doubt, that colors any interaction or lack of interaction with the object of one's desire. These precise doubts are separated out and distilled purely and tightly and lucidly by Aciman. He just does not let up. This was the great surprise of CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, for me. As much as I thought I'd want to throw this book down at times, I almost missed my stop because it would not let me go.
Rating: really liked it
A/N 03/18: i did this. and like all my public mistakes, erasing the evidence of it won't erase the consequences.
it stays.
as much to remind me how it happened as to accept that it did at all.
little intimacies.
of the many, many aspects of this book that resonated with us, one in particular was the basis of an interesting exchange between me and author santino hassell.
that exchange is excerpted below.SH: what do you think so far
JAG: i like it. it's very good at being what i think of as authentic teen gay boy POV
SH: it reminds me of something
JAG: it reminds me of a lot of things
SH: the parts where he's talking about how hot and cold the love interest dude gets
JAG: yes, with his facial expression
SH: yeah
JAG: that, specifically that. i've been there. with someone like that. it's a little scary. and then you understand them and it stops being scary, sometimes
SH: yes. i had a friend like that. when i was a kid. i thought i was in love with him but he was straight
JAG: i was thinking of the exact same thing. i had the exact same thing. a friend, when i was a teen. he'd be warm and affectionate and then his face would go cold like i was a stranger
SH: yes. that's how my friend was. i think he suspected i wanted him. he didn't know how to feel about it
JAG: that's what that scene in the book is about. they realize you have deeper feelings and they don't know how to deal, and then their face goes fucked, in this moment of vulnerability. they can't hide the panic or the revulsion
SH: yes
JAG: and it looks like that
SH: yes
JAG: because straight dudes can feel warm affection for you too, obviously. and for a moment—with some of them—they feel... when they realize you want them, they feel that their affection has left them exposed. like their affection has been abused
SH: that's exactly what my friend acted like. like all the times we'd been close, i'd taken advantage of him. he suspected me. and then he found out when he caught me and another boy fooling around in the locker rooms. found out that i really was bi. and then he knew he'd been right about me, and didn't know how to handle it
JAG: in the book, i recognized it right away. that feeling of ...recoiling
SH: yes
JAG: of resentment. it looks like that
SH: that was... a horrible experience
JAG: it happened to me too. i wonder if it happens to every queer person
SH: i wonder the same thing
JAG: like imagine you're a girl, you have your best girl friends, going to the bathroom together, secrets, sharing lipstick...
SH: yeah
JAG: little intimacies. and then you tell your girlfriends you're queer and they remember all those times, all those intimacies
SH: that's what happened with him, with my friend. he listed all of these things and acted like i'd manipulated something to make those things happen, or like i'd taken advantage of opportunities
JAG: instead of it being about basic humanity, about you being the same person you always were, it was about... about whatever
SH: he made me cry like a bitch
JAG: i'm sorry
SH: i even apologized. even though i hadn't done anything. because i didn't want him to hate me. but he did anyways
JAG: that's fucked. and i know exactly what that's like
SH: yea?
JAG: the first time i ever cried in public was when he told me he didn't want to be my friend. it's a thing that sticks with you. and i... turned into a different person, after that
SH: i'd never been rejected as an entire person because i was bi, before
JAG: i lost all my friends. because i'd made him #1 and everyone else peripheral. and when he was gone, he took all the rest with him
SH: if we smoked he refused to hit the same pipe. before he found out. he was on to me. i don't hide my feelings very well, on my face
JAG: kids feel things with everything. you loved him. and that's hard to hide
SH: when we smoked together i kinda got off on how the blunt or the pipe would be kind of damp from his mouth
JAG: i liked that too. my best girl friend would light my cigarette for me like that. like humphrey bogart. and i would feel really good
SH: i always remember that
JAG: me too
SH: he mentioned it. when he was telling me what a horrible person i was. and that's when i started crying
JAG: asshole
SH: actually i think he felt bad. but not bad enough to take it back
JAG: where was this
SH: at school. he saw me fooling around with the other kid and ran away and i chased after him for two blocks
JAG: shit
SH: he came into the locker room and saw, and gave me this look of disgust and hatred, and i followed him. he told me off on the corner. near central park. he was disgusted i was even near him. and that's where i lost it
JAG: my shit happened at school too
SH: where
JAG: in the building. during class. the hall. i wrote him a letter to ask if we could be friends again and gave it to a teacher's assistant who taught in both of our classes to hand it to him the next day. his class was before mine, so the whole day after i felt like i was going to throw up but also full of this crazy hope. and so finally that class rolls around, with the TA i gave my letter to, and she takes me out into the hall with her to give me what he wrote back. she hands me this folded up thing, and it's my own letter
SH: wow
JAG: and the thing is, dude—it was like being crazy, because i'm smelling him just then. because he had this smell, and only he smelled like this, a really, really good smell. and his smell was on this piece of paper in my hand, on my own letter, and she's saying to me "i'm really sorry. he just said no." and that was it. cried my eyes out right there in the hall in front of whomever
SH: people are fucked. like it's a violation
JAG: i think the point is that it feels like one, to them. they panic. and they don't know how to manage things gracefully. and when you're that young, you really don't. and that leads to The Look. it leads to The No.
SH: yea
JAG: whole-person rejection. for stupidity.
SH: you wanna know something weird? before that happened with my friend, i could fool myself into thinking he semi-reciprocated. he seemed to like being close to me
JAG: that is probably not something you imagined. like with my friend... we had this... unspeakable intimacy? little things
SH: yes
JAG: nice things
SH: yes
JAG: like there's this fence. made out of steel poles in the ground and a single chain, like a suspension bridge, behind the bus stop. we'd stand there every day, waiting for the bus. and while we waited he'd try to balance on the chain, like a tightrope walker. and i'd stand near him. like right under him, just casually talking and whatever like i wasn't loving it, loving him touching me, loving his smell. he'd put his hand on me. he'd rest his weight on me. and we'd just stand there doing that. every day
SH: little things like that matter
JAG: yeah. and there were a thousand of them
SH: ...damn this book
JAG: i am mildly peeved at it as well. the nerve, making us remember this shit
SH: whatever
JAG: yeah, whatever
SH: not like it has anything to do with who we are now
JAG: right, no, totally, nothing
SH: real men don't cry
JAG: i have never cried a day in my life
SH: are you going to use any of this in your review
JAG: obviously
SH: if you put the sissy bits in it i will kill you
JAG: not if i kill you first, motherfucker
SH: i said no!!! no means no!!!
JAG: fine, i'll change your name. a pseudonymous random author buddy talking books and queerz
SH: what will you use
JAG: i will be JAG and you will be PAB
SH: wtf is that
JAG: Punk Assed Bitch
SH: you dare
JAG: can't stop me. can't stop my flo
SH: no, i want Gay Chuck Norris
JAG: wut, Flaming Pustule McGee doesn't appeal to you?
SH: i should stab you
you may read santino hassell gay chuck norris’s review of this book here.PS added january 23, 2018:fuck me in the eye do i hate it when straight actors get kudos for playing queer characters.
that's not "brave," you simpering buttmunch, that's
your profession.i'm glad your vacation in the land of the Less Privileged was so critically acclaimed, but those of us out here exiled by our families or beat up in high school gymnasiums don't get to wear tuxedoes and tell the macabre fucks on
entertainment tonight about our exciting growth as actors.
and to be perfectly frank, while i don't know timothy chalamet from a hole in the wall, me and armie hammer go
way back—and so i feel led to clarify at this juncture that while i would still happily climb that man like a tree if he managed to keep himself in that doofily sexy, subvocal grunting range of human elocution, i nevertheless simply
cannot with him and his comments about having to "pray on it" and ask his wife whether it would be "okay to play a gay man" in a movie.cannot.
no puedo.
*rude gesture*
Rating: really liked it
Me: This isn't too bad, a little boring and some questionable things but not that bad
Me: *Reads the peach scene*
Me: I am... disgusted
Review also on my blog • Twitter • Bookstagram
Rep: m/m romance, Jewish mc, bi mc
Content warnings: sexual content, misuse of peaches
I have a weird experience with
Call Me By Your Name. I saw a YouTuber recommend it in 2015 and I wasn't reading at the time but I did look it up and it sat on my Goodreads TBR for a while. Then I found interest in it again, and I heard that it was turned into a movie and was coming out really soon at the time. My interest in the book kind of went back and forth because of the age gap and all that. But I decided to read it, and oh boy do I have opinions.
First, this book has a simple premise. Two men fall in love in Italy. There's a little bit of an age gap. And that's all I took in because this writing spent more time on atmosphere then actually telling a story. I like atmospheric writing but not this kind. For me it took away from the story. It's the kind you can easily skim and won't lose much if you did.
At times, the book was just excessively boring. I found it really hard to engage with the story or the characters. At times, Oliver was a little creepy. Sometimes he didn't make sure he had consent and just assumed Elio was consenting (a correct assumption but an assumption nonetheless). One time when he did ask Elio if he could kiss him, Elio almost scoffed that he had because they had kissed before. That was a strange thing to add, Oliver was trying to respect his boundaries, Elio didn't need to say he didn't like it.
Oliver also, as the goddamn adult in the situation, does point out that their relationship was inappropriate and still goes through with it. That didn't really sit well with me. I think they needed more communication since this is a complicated relationship. I think they're should've been more.
Aside from all that, there was the peach scene. Before that, this would've been a two star but this brought the book down for me, to the point I just skimmed until the end. I was horrified. If you don't want to know what the scene is, then stop here and go read another book.
Anyway, what happened in the scene was the Elio masturbated into a peach. He took the seed out and everything. He also orgasmed into it, leaving his semen in it. And then Oliver knowing this,
eats it. He takes a full on fucking bite into this desecrated peach. I'm no stranger to smut scenes, most of what I read is adult romances so sex doesn't bother me (well, unless it's foot fetishes which was in this too) but I draw the line at shit like this. I actually felt nauseous. Before that scene, this would've been a two star read but it genuinely ruined everything.
Am I going to watch the movie? Probably not. Especially knowing the peach scene is in it (alright I'll stop with the peach scene) but I really didn't like the relationship either. The book is overall overhyped and I never connected with the characters. The writing felt like it kept me at arms length, and I am already forgetting what happened in this book.
Rating: really liked it
Well, this fucked me
up.
