Call Me By Your Name- André Aciman

So I found out about this new movie, 'Call Me By Your Name' late last year. An independent film that takes place during the Italian summer, it honestly sounded perfect to me. I watched the movie, loved it, cried sufficiently and became low-key (read: high-key) obsessed with Timothee Chalamet. Still, I needed more. So being the bookworm I am, I had to read it. There are precious few books that I have read after seeing the film and, honestly, I was expecting not to like it that much, despite loving the film. I WAS WRONG. This book blew me away and I genuinely put off finishing it because I didn't want it to end. I didn't want that blissful sensation of reading a book for the first time to go away, because you can never get it back.

The story is told from the perspective of a 32 year old Elio Perlman looking back on the summer of 1987. Every summer Elio's father, a university professor, would have a doctoral student stay to work on their research as well as assisting him and in this particular year the house guest was Oliver. The book explores the themes of sexuality and romance as a love blossoms between the two characters. Their love is so real, which is evident up until the final word of the book and I was enraptured by their incredible minds and wisdom. Elio, despite being only 17, is wise far beyond his years, even though he believes the opposite, saying, “I'm not wise at all. I told you, I know nothing. I know books, and I know how to string words together--it doesn't mean I know how to speak about the things that matter most to me." Early on Elio writes, “We are not written for one instrument alone; I am not, neither are you,” and this was the sentence that confirmed the lasting impact this book was to have on me.

What made me love this book above all else, though, was getting to understand the inner workings of Elio's mind. Never have I been more appreciative of a book written in first person. The kid is so ridiculously self aware and so many of his feelings and struggles parallel ones in my own life, looking from a personality perspective. As mentioned, Elio is only 17 and his youthful innocence is very apparent. I know that the things he feels are common of his age but I myself am only 19. So I don't dismiss his feelings as naive and ones that he will get over as he ages. Instead, I read his thoughts and they resonates in my own mind. Perhaps it can be summed up by this one quote,

"Do you like being alone? he [Oliver] asked.

"No. No one likes being alone. But I've learned how to live with it."

Sounds a bit sad but this really stuck with me, as someone who upped and moved to the other side of the world last year. Like I said, Elio knows himself so well and that's what made him such a powerful character to me.

As I came snowballing towards the end of the book I didn't want Oliver to leave Italy, didn't want this summer to be over and didn't want this book to end. All things come to an end but I'm just glad that this book will stick with me forever. So I suggest to anybody to read it and be enthralled by a beautiful and painful love story.