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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A lovely and oh-so-tender coming-of-age story about a teenager who encounters his true soulmate very early in life and must, as a result, handle intense and complex adult emotions, perhaps before he’s fully ready. And it feels like a novel written by someone who has known a love much more intimate than many of us ever experience.
17-year-old Elio, living in a small town in Northern Italy, is accustomed to his professor-father hiring a different assistant each summer, to live with the family in exchange for help organizing academic work. In 1983, however, the assistant who arrives is Oliver, 7 years Elio’s senior and just beginning a promising academic career of his own.
The book is narrated by Elio and so the author gets to slowly reveal — with beauty, tenderness, depth, and authenticity — all the uncertainties, insecurities, hopes, and fears that occupy Elio’s mind as he navigates first love. There is so much truth in Andre Aciman’s descriptions, that you are certain to recognize in Elio’s psychological musings something from your own experiences.
Aciman takes you deep into Elio’s soul and you will know him intimately. There is SUCH exquisite detail about his passage through each painful stage: initial attraction, intense infatuation, obsessive fantasizing, wild passion, deep emotional attachment, and profound intimacy. I confess there were moments when the detail felt a bit overwhelming and I found myself eager for something to “happen.” But by the end of the book, I came to appreciate the way the author used the descriptions to lay a foundation for what was to come.
It’s a wonderful read though also sad. Because, by the end, it becomes much more about the decisions we all make in life, how those decisions shape our path, and how we sometimes long for the path not taken.
A true masterpiece that I think, anyone with a first love can relate with. This book made me cry multiple times. I was HIGHLY opposed to anything like this initially. Just another love story right? WRONG. It contains so many strong feelings that anyone who has ever loved someone like this can relate to. I loved so many aspects of this book. The difficulties love bring, the feelings of longing for someone you don’t think you can have. The obsession love can turn into. The not so happy twists life can take. This is definitely a more mature read but its does things no “romance” novel can normally do. It’s a coming of age story, it’s a love story, it’s a drama all rolled together into something we all can feel while it’s being read. It was a roller coaster of emotions, so much so that you may actually have the feelings that this character portrays. The heartbreaks in it, which are many, are so realistic and some are bitter sweet. I just can’t say anything more about how everyone, young or old, will have something to relate to in this novel. It truly is a work of beauty and I recommend it to anyone who has a heart.
My favorite book of all time!
Incredible depth of intimacy
This is truly a beautiful and somewhat tragic love story. I loved the movie and was relieved to a find I ended up loving the book. I’m equal parts excited and wary for the sequel that’s coming out in the fall.
beautifully written – almost poetic
The first two-thirds of this book is a boring account of the obsession of a younger, coming of age young man for an older graduate student who has come to live with the younger man’s family for the summer. Okay, we get it. He was in love and wanted a sexual relationship with the visitor. By the time anything happens, I couldn’t have cared less.
Too many words to tell a simple story. it seemed to ramble
This book quickly became one of my all-time favorites. The writing is absolutely beautiful. The characters had so much depth and I immediately became invested in them. Actually, I intentionally put off finishing the book because I didn’t want it to end.
Much better than the movie
Definitely a fun and emotional read!! The movie makes it all better
I just don’t get this book’s appeal. Could not finish it, and that rarely happens.
Literate descriptions, well developed characters, and wonderful stream of consciousness thoughts and triggered memories by the “narrator” makes this true literature rather than a prurient pot boiler. A very difficult subject well done by the author.
This book came highly recommended by my daughter who absulutley adores it. My thoughts as a maybe a not overly romantic woman were that the built up was a bit “teenage” with all the overly tormented questionings of looks, voice nuances and endless “what if’s”. However, it was rightfully written from the vantage point of a sensitive young man of not only falling in love, but so much more poignantly, truely and irrevocably loving someone. Where I fell in love with this book was towards its middle and end. This love story played out heart breakingly realistic, was beautifully written, almost poetic at times, honest and touchingly bitter sweet. I simply adore the fact that this book once again makes it crystal clear that love is love – it does not matter whom you love, how young or old one is, or where one is from. What mattters is the courage in allowing it to happen whole heartedly and dealing with the joy and pain love can and will bring with dignity and yes- with love.
Really well written. Captures micro moments beautifully and with insight.
This was a situation where I saw the movie before reading the book. Although I liked the move, I was a bit unimpressed. Then, I read the book. Again, the book is so much better than the movie. In the book, I felt like I was in the mind of the younger character as he narrated and told the story… I think the movie could have been so much better with a mature voice telling the story as the book did…
Wished I would have been aware of the book and read it before I saw the movie. A story that needed to be told, but the book did the better job telling it.
Love it. Nowadays it’s hard to find exceptional writing like this!
This is the most beautifully written book I have ever read! Loved it.
this amazing books
It has been a very long time since I fell so in love with an author’s style. A pretty straightforward coming of age story, in Aciman’s talented hands, becomes a heartbreaking, erotic stunner that stays with you. I love this book and the film version that also does it justice.