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A review by lunacanread
Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman
3.0
im like 5 years late but i have thoughts. slight spoilers ahead.
i appreciate the feeling the book is trying to give you, the beautiful descriptions and the feeling of Elio’s desire, but i just can’t look past the romanticizing of the age difference i’m sorry. there is no reason why he had to be 17, it’s not important for the story at all. at one point he said something about the age not mattering and that he felt like the older one, which was really something. it would be fine if it just wasn’t being romanticized like this.
above all that there were a few disturbing things that made me incredibly uncomfortable. “i put my mouth where she smells of the sea”, “the bruised and damaged peach, like a rape victim, lay on its side on my desk, shamed, loyal, aching and confused.”, at this point i didn’t even want to finish the book. (also “i had already tried the animal kingdom, now i was moving to the kingdom of plants” did i miss something like what is this supposed to mean?). let’s also not pretend Elio smelling and putting on Oliver’s bathing suit is not creepy and predatory. random sidenote i also absolutely hated the poet’s speech about Bangkok. talking about Bangkok people being “as exotic as they come”, shut up.
i also found the book to be pretentious at times, but maybe i’m just not smart enough for this type of writing. i did really enjoy the final part of the book. anyway, these were my unimportant and incoherent thoughts.
i appreciate the feeling the book is trying to give you, the beautiful descriptions and the feeling of Elio’s desire, but i just can’t look past the romanticizing of the age difference i’m sorry. there is no reason why he had to be 17, it’s not important for the story at all. at one point he said something about the age not mattering and that he felt like the older one, which was really something. it would be fine if it just wasn’t being romanticized like this.
above all that there were a few disturbing things that made me incredibly uncomfortable. “i put my mouth where she smells of the sea”, “the bruised and damaged peach, like a rape victim, lay on its side on my desk, shamed, loyal, aching and confused.”, at this point i didn’t even want to finish the book. (also “i had already tried the animal kingdom, now i was moving to the kingdom of plants” did i miss something like what is this supposed to mean?). let’s also not pretend Elio smelling and putting on Oliver’s bathing suit is not creepy and predatory. random sidenote i also absolutely hated the poet’s speech about Bangkok. talking about Bangkok people being “as exotic as they come”, shut up.
i also found the book to be pretentious at times, but maybe i’m just not smart enough for this type of writing. i did really enjoy the final part of the book. anyway, these were my unimportant and incoherent thoughts.