This Is Love? How Strange

Everyone has been talking about Call Me By Your Name since it was published/released as a movie, and I think I went into reading it with too high of hopes. (Or, quite possibly, I just don’t understand love like the author does.)

It was incredibly hard to read through the first chapter, even though both the main character and love interest were introduced within the first ten pages. The entirety of the book felt to me a bit rushed, but at the same time, it took way too long to get to the meat of the story.

There were very beautiful lines in this book that created interesting characters, and the word choice was not what I would have chosen, but it definitely added to the piece. However, the lines were all dragged out, and I felt as though Andre Aciman (the author) could have given me some shorter lines so my brain had time to breathe in  between sentences.

I hate this, but I also skipped over a few pages at times and still understood the story, and I wish certain parts were not included. I don’t want to give spoiler alerts, so I’m not going to, but any parts that were about Elio, the main character, considering his love for Oliver were my favorite. They showed how unreliable he was as a first-person character, as well as the confusion and wishy-washy reactions to falling in love with Oliver.

I was actually very uneasy about the age-gap between both characters. (Oliver was 24 and Elio, 17.) That was something that I found very threatening, almost, and I was shocked to see how Aciman decided to go about handling it. That beingsaid, the ties the two had in religion were interesting. I still don’t know how I feel about it, but whatever.

The setting really did wonders for the growth in love in this piece. I do not think this piece would have been as successful in any other setting. The life Andre Aciman gave this small town was wild, the fragrances, foods, and style was something that kept me wanting to read. Having the ocean in this piece also gave a heavy, pulling feeling to my gut. It definitely was one of the most sensory aspect that painted a great picture in my head of setting.

The way this was written makes the book timeless. If you took out the small parts with technology and recent news, the piece could’ve been created a few years back or a hundred. The timelessness was also one of the most incredible aspects to this piece that drew me in. Andre Aciman is a peculiar writer to me, and I still don’t necessarily understand the love wholly in the book, but I did enjoy it and want to further study the piece.

Author: Katherine Westbrook

Kate. Too cool for school.