Now a Major Motion Picture from Director Luca Guadagnino, Starring Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet, and Written by Three-Time Oscar™ Nominee James IvoryThe Basis of the Oscar-Winning Best Adapted ScreenplayA New York Times BestsellerA USA Today Bestseller A Los Angeles Times BestsellerA Vulture Book Club Pick An Instant Classic and One of the Great Love Stories of Our TimeAndre Aciman’s Call … Bestseller
A Vulture Book Club Pick
An Instant Classic and One of the Great Love Stories of Our Time
Andre Aciman’s 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’ cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera. Each is unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, when, during the restless summer weeks, unrelenting currents of obsession, fascination, and desire intensify their passion and test the charged ground between them. Recklessly, the two verge toward the one thing both fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy. It is an instant classic and one of the great love stories of our time.
Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Ficition
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year • A Publishers Weekly and The Washington Post Best Book of the Year • A New York Magazine “Future Canon” Selection • A Chicago Tribune and Seattle Times (Michael Upchurch’s) Favorite Favorite Book of the Year
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Its like you’re in an Italian dream, then I just cried and cried.
Cause of death: Armie Hammer’s voice.
This book has literally everything I hate in novels. Too much introspective and purple prose. Not enough dialogue. Long, meandering sentences, waxing poetically about nothing whatsoever. No chapters. Too many pronouns. Really inappropriate relationships. Scenes where absolutely nothing happened. Every coming-of-age story trope.
The teenager and the grad student. The weirdly accepting and blasé attitudes from the wealthy intellectual parents. The unrelenting teenage angst. The poetry. All the poetry. Oliver and Elio spend their summer together in Italy loving and hating, resenting and worshipping, obsessing and distancing. I should have hated this.
But somehow Aciman managed to write it all in a way that it doesn’t just work, it’s a thing of beauty. The story works for this style of writing and it never feels clunky or drawn out, it just flows, even when it feels like the story is going nowhere. Elio and Oliver both drove me insane. I constantly just wanted to shake them both and shout “what are you doing???” in their faces. But Aciman imbued so much emotion into every word he wrote in Elio’s voice that you can’t help but feel everything that Elio is feeling. Including every emotion he feels towards Oliver, which leads you to unexpected understanding and forgiveness for each of Oliver’s transgressions.
And Armie Hammer delivered such a spectacular performance every step of the way. While Call Me by Your Name is definitely a story about desire, it’s not really a love story. It’s more about all-consuming obsession and passion and Hammer encapsulates all of that in the delivery of every single word. So much of the story is told in a tone that is desperate to the point of discomfort, which Hammer absolutely nails. (C’mon, I had to.) I thought it would be fun to listen to the book narrated by an actor with an excellent voice who also happened to be in the movie. I didn’t expect to hang onto his every syllable from start to finish. I could go on for hours about his voice and tone and performance, but this article is more clever and articulate than I could ever be. http://www.vulture.com/2017/09/just-20-descriptions-of-armie-hammers-voice.html
Very romantic. The narrative lingers as do the main characters, Elio and Oliver. I would love for the author to write a sequel!
Its a great love story. Love it.
An utterly boring stream-of-consciousness blob that is an insult to gay males. Don’t waste your time or money.
The most emotionally stirring book I’ve ever read.