Call Me by Your Name
Beautiful
Emotional
Unforgettable

Call Me by Your Name A Novel

André Aciman2008
The sudden and powerful attraction between a teenage boy and a summer guest at his parents' house on the Italian Riviera has a profund and lasting influence that will mark them both for a lifetime, in a novel of obsession, passion, fear, and desire. By the author of False Papers. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.
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Reviews

Photo of K.
K.@grievoustar
2.5 stars
May 19, 2025

No comment. 🪦

Photo of Sadie Hoffman
Sadie Hoffman@sadieolympia
5 stars
Mar 15, 2025

a re-read of one of my favorite books. more beautiful and masterful than I remembered. this story will always have a place in my heart. 🌊☀️

+3
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Cate@catesbooks
5 stars
Feb 20, 2025

Later

+3
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marie:)@mariesmedia
4 stars
Feb 11, 2025

“I remember everything”

+3
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karla nicole@kar_oppi
3.5 stars
Nov 8, 2024

The ending saved this, many parts of the book seemed to drawl on for longer than necessary, but that's art I guess!

Photo of Gwenifer
Gwenifer@gwenifer
4.5 stars
Aug 27, 2024

It was umnessary disgusting sometimes but except from that Its a masterpiece and really poetical

+7
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Carmen Malca@cramen
2 stars
Aug 18, 2024

slowwwwww and weird

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Emi@omnipotent_emu
3.5 stars
Aug 9, 2024

The end saved this from getting an even lower rating. The atmosphere was great but I didn’t care for any of the characters besides the father.

Photo of Patrick Book
Patrick Book@patrickb
3 stars
Jul 5, 2024

3.5, maybe. The last third has a lot of heavy lifting to do to make up for the ceaseless ruminating of the first third, but the more I think about that last stretch the more impactful it seems.

Photo of Gelaine Trinidad
Gelaine Trinidad@gelaine
5 stars
Jul 5, 2024

Warning: this book review is extremely biased and borderline fangirl-esque. I love this book, and I love André Aciman's writing. This book has everything I love when reading for the sake of escapism. This is a bittersweet coming of age book about desire, longing, first love, and first heartache. This is also a book that naturally shows the fluidity of gender through Elio's thoughts and actions. It is the perfect book to read as summer is coming to a close; reading this made me dream of peaceful and slow Mediterranean summers. Again, there is so much tension, longing, and desire in the first part as I immersed myself in Elio's stream of consciousness. I loved all the symbolisms like Oliver's swim shorts and Oliver picking ripe apricots. Aciman has a way with words and plays with the origin of the word "apricot" in a sensual way. Also, one cannot forget another fruit metaphor—the peach scene in both the movie and the book. After reading this, I felt compelled to watch the film version again and look for subtle connections to the book (e.g. the statue they found in the sea in the movie represents a specific part of the book in which Elio feared that Oliver drowned and his lifeless and eyeless body—like the statue— will show up on the shores). It's hard to put this book down. There was so much push and pull between Elio and Oliver: their indirect forms of communication and hidden truths they insert in their coded conversations in hopes that it'll be understood by the other. There was also a lot to unpack from Elio's fantasies and imaginations. Elio experiences such contrasting emotions in part two such as desire and shame. It is an honest portrayal of someone experiencing love and passion for the first time. Aciman also loves writing about time and the concept of parallel lives. Elio and Oliver are living in borrowed time. In part three, this theme is explored even further through something called The San Clemente Syndrome: "like the subconscious, like love, like memory, like time itself, like every single one of us, the church is built on the ruins of subsequent restorations, there is no rock bottom, there is no first anything, no last anything, just layers and secret passageways and interlocking chambers, like the Christian Catacombs, and right along these, even a Jewish Catacomb.” I am left even more heartbroken by this next quote: “...how we move through time, how time moves through us, how we change and keep changing and come back to the same. He came. He left. Nothing else has changed. I had not changed. The world hasn’t changed. Yet nothing would be the same. All that remains is dreammaking and strange remembrance.” It makes you wonder, what could have been? Aciman writes with sincere infatuation with nostalgia and moments that may never happen again. The night spent in Rome with older literature lovers is a very meaningful time for Elio not just because Oliver is there with him but because Elio finds a community he wants to belong to and felt an instant connection with. This is unlike his friends back in B. It’s a good reminder for Elio as he’s growing up—there’s more to life outside his bubble. Although part three had some questionable parts (e.g. the poet's story with a transgender hotel clerk in Bangkok), the night in Rome was for the most part very romantic and intimate. Elio's father's speech in both the book and the movie is so meaningful; Aciman brings it home with the familiar themes of time, love, and parallel lives in part four. “Time makes us sentimental. Perhaps, in the end, it is because of time that we suffer." *plays Sufjan Stevens in the background* I highly recommend this book and the audiobook narrated by Armie Hammer.

Photo of Megan Parrott
Megan Parrott@meganparrott
5 stars
Jul 5, 2024

One of those books that I wish I could experience for the first time again. It’s intoxicating in the way many coming-of-age love stories can be, but it never felt corny or trite. I loved being inside Elio’s head — especially when his mind would wandered from thought to thought, as he tried to take in everything he felt. For me, this book speaks to how fluid love is, if we allow ourselves to surrender to it. Update: The audiobook as read by Armie Hammer is my favorite iteration of this story (though I also loved the movie and of course the written work).

Photo of Ryan Mateyk
Ryan Mateyk@the_rybrary
4 stars
Jul 4, 2024

This book was incredible.

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gita@gitgut
5 stars
Jun 21, 2024

idk what to say but it's SO GOOD everything about cmbyn just so perfect

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armoni mayes@armonim1
5 stars
Jun 17, 2024

After reading this book, i will refer to my life as “before” or “after” reading call me by your name because i am simply destroyed

Photo of Anjorin Molayo
Anjorin Molayo @bookishtems
4 stars
Jun 1, 2024

“Perhaps the physical and the metaphorical meanings are clumsy ways of understanding what happens when two beings need, not just to be close together, but to become so totally ductile that each becomes the other. To be who I am because of you. To be who he was because of me.” I’m still in awe of how beautiful Aciman’s writing style is. this entire story depicted the desperation and the chaos sexual desires can bring. it’s sweet at times and terrifying at times. it's truthful in a raw way. “We had found the stars, you and I.” Although i won’t deny the fact that entering Elio’s head left me disturbed. I still can’t fathom how dirty his mind could go. And i can’t move past the fact that Oliver was grooming Elio. Yes, Oliver tried to stop the attraction towards each other, but it still felt like what he was doing wasn’t enough. The final part of this book is just...It broke me to the core😔. 4.25 ⭐️

Photo of Rodrigo Figueiredo Severino
Rodrigo Figueiredo Severino@rodrigueseve
4 stars
Mar 30, 2024

** spoiler alert ** I have a lot of thoughts about this. The book is beautifully written. The way the author manages to walk the line between erotic and poetic is stellar and the way he brings Elio’s speech to life is fantastic, giving us a true insight to what his feelings really are. Now the thing is you’ll have to come into this book with a seriously open mind cuz I was absolutely not expecting the age gap to be this weird, Elio to be this obsessed as a 17 year old with a 24 year old man (that indulges in such behavior), I was not expecting him to wish Oliver was paralyzed just so he could keep him in Italy, for example, and I also wasn’t expecting Oliver to place his hand on Elios stomach while he takes a dump in Rome so he can “feel what he feels”, between other weird parts of this book. What redeems this book for me, despite the obsessive and unhealthy nature of their relationship for most of it, are two things: the last 40 pages when Oliver leaves and Elio grows up tie the book all together and show that there was real love from both parts instead of just obsession from a 17 year old teen discovering himself, and the last about 20 pages specially are really touching. And second, it’s just relatability. Of course this is taken to an huge extreme, but as someone who has been on a similar situation to what the book depicts (without the weird age gap), a lot of this book felt like direct stabs to my little heart. So the beautiful poetic writing style, the ending that almost makes the rest of the book less weird by acknowledging their growth and how their relationship was real, just mildly inappropriate and too intense for its own good, and the fact I can in hindsight get the messages and relate to the situation in the book leads to my 4 star rating.

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muskaan bal@muskaankb
2 stars
Mar 24, 2024

Two words: peach scene

Photo of china alford
china alford@chineezy
2 stars
Mar 18, 2024

the writing was brilliant but the plot was so mid and boring. this became INSUFFERABLE 😭 and it was anticlimactic. i actually liked the ending and it was the best part.

Photo of 𓆨
𓆨@viridiantre
5 stars
Mar 14, 2024

this made me experience feelings i've never had

Photo of Julie Rubens
Julie Rubens@julierubens
3 stars
Feb 15, 2024

I honestly just didn’t like this book very much. I thought it was really weird at times and I just wasn’t very invested in either the plot or the characters. It definitely wasn’t a bad book, I just didn’t enjoy reading it a lot.

Photo of Ryan
Ryan @ryandoesread
4 stars
Jan 19, 2024

4.5 stars there were a few small plot holes that comes into mind. but the sensual tone, the flow, the writing, PART 4 (!!), it struck a chord that became endearing and perpetual

Photo of Julia Lundberg
Julia Lundberg @julsbuls
2 stars
Jan 17, 2024

** spoiler alert ** beautiful ending of an irritating, confusing and pretentious book. "I stopped for a second. If you remember everything, I wanted to say, and if you are really like me, then before you leave tomorrow, or when you're just ready to shut the door of the taxi and have already said goodbye to everyone else and there's not a thing left to say in this life, then, just this once, turn to me, even in jest, or as an afterthought, which would have meant everything to me when we were together, and, as you did back then, look me in the face, hold my gaze, and call me by your name." an extraordinary way of ending a book, a shame that the rest of the book was awful. we can begin talking about that a twenty-four-year old man iniciated a relationship with seventeen-year old boy. you can blame it on the location or the era, i don't care, it's still extremely wierd and off-putting. i couldn't relate to the carachters at all. it was annoyingly obvious that it was a sixty-year-old dude that tried to portrait a seventeen-year-old perspective. who reads dante and plays mozart when they are 17? if you aren't knowledgable in greek history, this whole book will be a confusing mess for you because i lost interest every time i read a greek name which was like every second page. i didn't feel like it was a passionate love, it was a obsessive, wierd and intrusive love. i think that oliver is cruel, selfish, immature and that he is playing with elios emotions. i didn't understand either of elio or oliver. the least elio. he was constantly aware of every step oliver did, and he was jealous and petty. he was constantly asuming thinks about oliver that wasn't true and he was incredibly hypocritical. i would also like to mention a very disturbing part of the book where he mentions rape in a very wierd context: "the bruised and damaged peach, like a rape victim (HEELLLLLLO?????), lay on its side on my desk shamed, loyal, aching, and confused, struggling no to spill what i'd left inside." when we are already mentioning the peach, what is up with that??????????? and the constant mentioning of sex all the time. and the fact that a straight man is writing a book of a gay relationship doesn't sit well with me.

Photo of azliana aziz
azliana aziz@heartinidleness
5 stars
Jan 13, 2024

what a journey it is. i am still reeling from the powerful last chapter and the conversation between Elio and his father. i am a sobbing mess by the end and i think this is probably the only book that i literally clutched my own hand and heart while reading. deeply in love with Aciman's beautiful prose that i keep re reading and making notes of and will keep on going back to remember them probably years later or perhaps tonight, before i go to sleep. reading this was all consuming and crushing at the same time but also so beguiling that you can't help to continue although you know when you reach the finishing line that your heart will break to tiny little pieces and i did. + re the film adaptation that will be coming our way soon! YEAY!! i know that Timothee Chalamet will do Elio justice and yes my heart will break again and again.

Photo of reg
reg@regsardothien
5 stars
Jan 10, 2024

HOW DO YOU EVEN RATE THIS KIND OF BOOK OH MY GOD MY HEART HURTS

Highlights

Photo of 𓇢𓆸 jerica
𓇢𓆸 jerica@wltdhycnth

Yours, like Later!, had an off-the-cuff, unceremonious, here, catch quality that reminded me how twisted and secretive my desires were compared to the expansive spontaneity of everything about him.

Page 35
Photo of 𓇢𓆸 jerica
𓇢𓆸 jerica@wltdhycnth

... pick those fruits that were almost blushing with shame, she said... Is this one blushing with shame? No, she would say, this one is too young still, youth has no shame, shame comes with age.

Page 35
Photo of 𓇢𓆸 jerica
𓇢𓆸 jerica@wltdhycnth

I had never heard someone his age say, I know myself. It intimidated me.

Page 34
Photo of 𓇢𓆸 jerica
𓇢𓆸 jerica@wltdhycnth

Oliver timido? That was new. Could all of his gruff Americanisms be nothing more than an exaggerated way of covering up the simple fact that he didn't know—or feared he didn't know—how to take his leave gracefully?

Page 34
Photo of 𓇢𓆸 jerica
𓇢𓆸 jerica@wltdhycnth

I was Glaucus and he was Diomedes. In the name of some obscure cult among men, I was giving him my golden armor for his bronze. Fair exchange. Neither haggle, just as neither spoke of thrift or extravagance.

Page 30
Photo of 𓇢𓆸 jerica
𓇢𓆸 jerica@wltdhycnth

Let summer never end, let him never go away, let the music on perpetual replay play forever, I'm asking for very little, and I swear I'll ask for nothing more.

Page 30
Photo of 𓇢𓆸 jerica
𓇢𓆸 jerica@wltdhycnth

"This is heaven."

Page 28
Photo of 𓇢𓆸 jerica
𓇢𓆸 jerica@wltdhycnth

... "Must we?" This was the closest I would ever come to saying, Stay. Just stay with me.

Page 24

Doomed.

Photo of 𓇢𓆸 jerica
𓇢𓆸 jerica@wltdhycnth

The summer I'd hear a bird sing, smell a plant, or feel the mist rise from under my feet on warm sunny days and, because my senses were always on alert, would automatically find them rushing to him.

Page 18
Photo of 𓇢𓆸 jerica
𓇢𓆸 jerica@wltdhycnth

P.S. We are not written for one instrument alone; I am not, neither are you.

Page 13
Photo of 𓇢𓆸 jerica
𓇢𓆸 jerica@wltdhycnth

I liked it when our feet were aligned, left with left, and struck the ground at at the same time, leaving footprints on the shore that I wished to return to and, in secret, place my foot where his had left its mark.

Page 11
Photo of 𓇢𓆸 jerica
𓇢𓆸 jerica@wltdhycnth

I was going for the devious smile that would suddenly light up his face each time he'd read my mind, when all I wanted was skin, just skin.

Page 8
Photo of 𓇢𓆸 jerica
𓇢𓆸 jerica@wltdhycnth

I shut my eyes, say the word, and I'm back in Italy, so many years ago, walking down the tree-lined driveway, watching him step out of the cab, billowy blue shirt, wide-open collar, sunglasses, straw hat, skin everywhere.

Page 3
Photo of Sadie Hoffman
Sadie Hoffman@sadieolympia

And the digging could go on and on. Like the subconscious, like love, like memory, like time itself, like every single one of us, the church is built on the ruins of subsequent restorations, there is no rock bottom, there is no first anything, no last anything, just layers and secret passageways and interlocking chambers.

Page 192

perfect metaphor for life

Photo of Sadie Hoffman
Sadie Hoffman@sadieolympia

If there is any truth in the world, it lies when I’m with you

Page 49

💖

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Iris van der zanden@irisvdz

But to feel nothing so as to not feel anything-what a waste!

Page 224
Photo of Holly
Holly@tolya

...youth has no shame, shame comes with age.

Page 35
Photo of Holly
Holly@tolya

...smells and sounds I'd grown up with and known every year of my life until then but that had suddenly turned on me and acquired an inflection forever colored by the events of that summer.

Page 10
Photo of Tabea
Tabea@attako

Perhaps we were friends first and lovers second. But then perhaps this is what lovers are.

Page 157

I like that thought :)

Photo of macie livesay
macie livesay@macie17

“We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything - what a waste!“

Photo of Victoria
Victoria@butterflying

“God, the way they envied us from across the dinner table that first night in Rome,” he said. “Staring at us, the young, the old, men, women—every single one of them at that dinner table—gaping at us, because we were so happy.

“And on that evening when we grow older still we’ll speak about these two young men as though they were two strangers we met on the train and whom we admire and want to help along. And we’ll want to call it envy, because to call it regret would break our hearts.”

Silence again.

“Perhaps I am not yet ready to speak of them as strangers,” I said.

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think either of us ever will be.”

This highlight contains a spoiler
Photo of Victoria
Victoria@butterflying

“I remember everything.”

I stopped for a second. If you remember everything, I wanted to say, and if you are really like me, then before you leave tomorrow, or when you’re just ready to shut the door of the taxi and have already said goodbye to everyone else and there’s not a thing left to say in this life, then, just this once, turn to me, even in jest, or as an afterthought, which would have meant everything to me when we were together, and, as you did back then, look me in the face, hold my gaze, and call me by your name.

This highlight contains a spoiler
Photo of Victoria
Victoria@butterflying

You are the only person I’d like to say goodbye to when I die, because only then will this thing I call my life make any sense. And if I should hear that you died, my life as I know it, the me who is speaking with you now, will cease to exist.

Photo of Victoria
Victoria@butterflying

If there is pain, nurse it, and if there is a flame, don’t snuff it out, don’t be brutal with it. Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night, and watching others forget us sooner than we’d want to be forgotten is no better. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything—what a waste!