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BOOK REVIEW

Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman has touched my heart like no other. The fear of leaving the past, the yearning longing for it; Elio is relatable to me in many ways. However, there is a core part of the book that I cannot get over! And that is, the queer romance aspect of the book, and later the movie.

I have absolutely no issue of it beng queer, but rather, the age-gap. While it wasn't entirely condemned at the setting of the book as far as I know (somewhere in northern Italy, 1983), it is most certainly innapropriate now. The book, the wikapedia page, and the movie itself, never mention the age of Oliver. Sometimes Elio's is mentioned, as 17, but Oliver never is. Approximately 25 pages into the book, you learn that Oliver is twenty-four.

And the book has no issue with this either. In fact, they excuse it. After Oliver ghosts a 17 year old girl named Chiara after presumably having a casual sexual relationship with her, one of the adult characters, Mafalda, state :
"She's a baby and he's a university professor. Couldn't she have gone after someone her own age? "
And no one went against what she said, as much as Chiara was upset, despite Mafalda taking the weight of the blame off of Oliver and placing it onto the victim of the grooming.

This thing isn't resolved by the end of the book either. Nothing about their relationship is wrong other than it being homosexual, and even then, Elio's family is welcoming to queer individuals. Especially Elio's father, but he and Elio's mother ultimately also encourage Oliver's grooming, letting the man take Elio out of the town alone for three days, while Mr. Perlman was fully aware of what Oliver was doing to his son. And, the last conversation between Elio and his father, his father calls their relationship 'beautiful'
While I understand where he is coming from, it is completely innapropriate to have multiple characters encourage grooming behaviour and then have zero concequence or retort against them for their actions. Elio's family failed him.

Oliver and Elio even get together in the second book, Find Me, though thankfully while older. But it doesn't change where their relationship stemmed from. As much as I believe that Oliver had his own affection for Elio, a genuine affection that isn't just lust, he is still very much in the wrong, no matter what the book says.

I relate to Elio in many ways, including for his relationship with Oliver as I have had a similar inappropriate relationship with someone older than me. And they left me before I was ready to say goodbye. I believe that must be one of the reasons to why this book has connected with me so deeply, despite the contents that I heartily disagree with. ⠀
I couldn't recommend this book in good faith. ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀
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