I’ll be honest and say there were things in this book that really blew me away. The language was crafty and it was probably the most original book I’ve read this year (and maybe in the top 5 of most original ever). I also love his use of repetition.

Anyway wow. Let me just start by saying if you can’t stand the erotic stuff, skip this one. If you love it, however, read it and then watch the Oscar-winning movie 😉 like I’m going to do next. The whole reason I bought the book in the first place was because I wanted to read it before I saw it, and now since the book got the award for best adapted screenplay and was nominated for best movie of the year & Timothée Chalamet 😉😉😳😳🤭🤭😱😱 was nominated for best actor in a leading role.

In all seriousness, however, the book was excellent overall. I’ll be honest there is a lot of “world building in part 1 (the book is broken up into 4 parts) but just hold out some 50-60ish pages because it’s worth it. Plus, the writing is beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that depicts orgasms and sex in such a lovely and appealing manner. Especially the parts about the fruit...just you wait that’s the best, most interesting and original part of them all. I think I learned about more ways to use and see fruit though this book than I have before. I’m not sure I’ll be able to eat them the same again.

I loved how the author showed and tells Elio’s obsessions, passion, doubts, fears, etc. He really brought this teenage boy to life in away that I sometimes found myself seeing myself in him (not in a creepy manner of course, but a few traits and tough life lessons learned). As I was reading, I found myself yelling at him—telling him not to make this decision or that one because I’d been down a similar road before and yet I also found myself rooting for him. To have the guts to do the things I always regretted not doing when I had the chance.

Books like these hit close to home sometimes...The one thing I’m glad about is that this was a heavy self-discovery and self-identity book too. I think that if it hadn’t been, I might have thought Elio’s actions could have been really annoying. I sympathize with him for it, though. I fell in love with his character and strange personality.

I loved the way the romance(?) flourished, if what they had can be called romance. It’s one of those things where you have to read it to understand b/c at times I was convinced it was FWB other times I was telling myself they were very much in love. 🤷‍♀️ It’s really questionable up until the end when everyone’s questions are answered and it’s all heartbreaking. I understand why ppl told me they cried.

However, he was also the reason for my 4 star review outside of the fact that the majority of the first part is slow and “world building”. Sometimes he’s unreadable or you don’t really understand him that well so the reader has to do work to infer stuff (and it’s told from 1st person POV). A lot of focus tend to be put on his relationship with characters like Oliver and Marzea that it gets lost when he’s not with them. It wasn’t very often but it did have me going back and rereading a few pages to make sure I caught everything.

Oliver was a whole different animal. I loved him from start to finish no questioning. Through the good and the bad, Oliver is Oliver. Nothing else needs to be said.

I want to end this on one of my favorite quotes:

“Call me by your name and I’ll call you by mine.”

👆👆👆Btw, this is the story. 👆👆👆