Book Review | Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman

Call Me By Your Name is not the romantic story about two boys in Italy. The problems in this book lies deeper than what that peach could hold.

Fair warning that this review includes spoilers to the book because I really needed to rant about it and get it out of my system.

About Call Me By Your Name

17-year-old Elio spends his summer on the Italian riviera with his family For six weeks, he is joined by his father's house guest, Oliver. In exchange for the help offered by Oliver, Oliver, the American academic graduate, gets to do whatever he pleases while at Elio's residence.

What starts off as an innocent boy's ostentatious actions to charm Oliver slowly develop into a summer fling. From the morning swims in 'heaven' to their sultry evening in Rome, the experiences gone through by both Elio and Oliver cause repercussions that would affect them for the rest of their lives.

Call Me By Your Name Review

We have a few things to discuss but let's first talk about the writing.

I'm a bit on the fence about André Aciman's writing. It is wonderful but can be very pretentious at times. The obscure literary references made no sense at all and Elio's melodramatic teenage angst was cringey, to say the least.

The wordy sentences were a mouthful to read and listen to. This is especially so for Armie Hammer, who is the narrator of the audiobook and plays Oliver in the live-action movie of the same name.

The descriptions were way too long and it was awfully draggy. It's meant to entice the reader and bring them into Aciman's version of Italy but all it does it bring me to boredom.

Besides the writing, I also found the characters to be dull.

For one, Elio is the most unrealistic teenager ever. At the ripe age of 17, he can speak so many languages fluently—English, Italian and German, to name a few—and he can translate the most difficult sheet music as if it was second nature. He also magically has the wisdom of an 80-year-old, not sure how that's supposed to work.

Elio was also an undeveloped character. We know nothing of his life pre-Oliver and his thoughts only revolved around that basic white man. I don't know if that was supposed to be some hint to Elio and Oliver's unhealthy dynamic in their relationship but it felt shallow, even for a hormones-raging teenager.

Then we have Oliver, this 24-year-old is writing some kind of book throughout his stay in Italy. He works on his manuscripts during the day and then sends them off to his Italian translator in the evenings. He's handsome. He says "later" instead of "goodbye". He wears red bathing suits. That's pretty much all I got from him.

I couldn't care less for either Elio or Oliver. Nothing about the characters interested me, including the other side characters.

Then we have the plot. Oh, I have so many things to say about the plot; we'll be here for a while. It is one of the most problematic things I've ever read.

Right off the bat, we have Elio and Oliver's age gap. Elio is 17 and Oliver is 24. These two have had an intimate relationship on more than one occasion. First, Elio is a minor. Second, Oliver states multiple times how it was "wrong" for them to participate in such behaviour, yet he continues to do it. Honestly, what is wrong with you.

Don't even get me started on all the weird shit Elio was saying about Oliver.

If I didn't kill him, then I'd cripple him for life, so that he'd be with us 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.

I think this boy needs therapy. Like right now. This is seriously not normal teenage thoughts.

Yes, Elio. Yes, I am. Terrified actually.

And then we have the infamous peach scene. If you've watched the movie, you know that it is THE most famous scene. What people enjoy about that scene genuinely baffles me but now I simply cannot let it pass.

I let myself hang back, holding the fruit in both hands, grateful that I hadn't gotten the sheet dirty with 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.

The bruised and damaged peach lay on it's side like a WHAT? How did anyone who read this seriously let that slide.

An accurate representation of my reaction after reading that.

I should've stopped reading then and there for my own sanity but no, I decided to continue.

We had never taken a shower together. We had never even been in the same bathroom together. "Don't flush," I'd said, "I want to look." What I saw brought out strains of compassion, for him, for his body, for his life, which suddenly seemed so frail and vulnerable. "Our bodies won't have secrets now," I said as I took my turn and sat down. He had hopped into the bathtub, and was about to turn on the shower. "I want you to see mine," I said. He did more. He stepped out, kissed me on the mouth, and pressing and massaging my tummy with the flat of his palm, watched the whole thing happen.

Mum, can you pick me up? I'm scared.

I honestly don't understand what was so romantic about Elio and Oliver's relationship.

It's obvious from Elio's monologue that he was naive and delusional about his feelings and relationship towards Oliver. He was so smitten by Oliver, purely because of physical attraction, that he couldn't see past sound reason.

Oliver, being the grown man he is, is also obviously taking advantage of Elio's lack of experience.

There is nothing romantic about their relationship. It is problematic and one-sided, not in a cute and fun way.

My Recommendation

★☆☆☆☆ (1/5)

Not going to lie, I would have given this book two stars at first. There were some beautiful quotes that I enjoyed and resonated with, despite the writing being a bit bland. However, there are just so many things wrong in this book that I just cannot not bring it up.

I also would've closed one eye about the main characters' age gap but it turns out that the writer is not even gay. If you're going to write a gay love story, at least have some experience with it, won't you?

I will never recommend this book. It was a waste of my time and money, and I will not be going forward with reading the second part of the series. I don't even know WHY a second book was written...

One of it is enough to give me enough trauma to last me a lifetime.