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nahilarr's review against another edition
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pedophilia
alexafuson's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
1.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, and Sexual content
earthlyfae's review against another edition
Pretentious writing style masking as poetry. Trying to imitate classics while managing to be wholly boring and uninventive. Hypersexuality written in the grossest way possible, inexcusable age gap, unredeemable reference to r*pe, and overall felt disgusting to read. Do not recommend to anyone. I am queer and I am stunned that anyone liked this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Pedophilia, and Sexual content
ninascozydayreads's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
I could go on and on about what bothered me and what I hated about this book, and I will, but what I hated most (and yes, not even disliked, hated) was how unnecessary it all was. I have heard people describe this book as being "thought-provoking", and if that's the case for you, great! For me, whatever might have been thought provoking got completely buried under unnecessarily uncomfortable scenes. This book has ruined peaches for me. I love peaches! There was so much that I just wished I didn't have had to read, but unfortunately I did and this book will haunt me for the rest of my life in the worst way possible.
I also want to talk a bit on the actual problematic part of the book: the relationship. This relationship has been romanticized over and over again by readers, which gained a lot of critique in and of itself, and I've heard people say "but it's not a romance! It's a tragedy". I'm sorry, this is a romance. A bad one, an uncomfortable one, an overly-obsessive-bordering-on-stalking-and-danger-one. Sure, Oliver sometimes raises his doubts about the age difference between him and Elio. But there is never any substantial critique; not in dialogue, not in plot. And sure, the Elio's flaws were a main theme in the book, I'll admit that. But like the relationship, those flaws were never substantially critiqued or worked on. The whole book he kept this unhealthy obsession with someone much older, and it was creepy.
Fifteen years later, Elio is still obsessed with Oliver and doesn't even give it a second thought how problematic that age difference was. Sure, 8 years might not seem like a lot, and it's fine if say one person is 35 and the other 42. But at 17 and 25 you're at two totally different stages of life, and a 17 year old is by all accounts a child. And yes, this relationship is extremely romanticized in the book and it's simply put, unhealthy.
I also want to talk a bit on the actual problematic part of the book: the relationship. This relationship has been romanticized over and over again by readers, which gained a lot of critique in and of itself, and I've heard people say "but it's not a romance! It's a tragedy". I'm sorry, this is a romance. A bad one, an uncomfortable one, an overly-obsessive-bordering-on-stalking-and-danger-one. Sure, Oliver sometimes raises his doubts about the age difference between him and Elio. But there is never any substantial critique; not in dialogue, not in plot. And sure, the Elio's flaws were a main theme in the book, I'll admit that. But like the relationship, those flaws were never substantially critiqued or worked on. The whole book he kept this unhealthy obsession with someone much older, and it was creepy.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Alcohol
Minor: Child death, Death of parent, and Infidelity
1quillb's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
0.25
Don’t read this book. Please don’t. It’s sick and twisted and honestly pretty homophobic. It never should have been made into a movie, or been made popular. It’s a miracle I finished it.
Firstly, I would like to leave some... interesting quotes from this book that might be enough to explain my rating:
“part of me didn’t mind his dying, that there was even something almost exciting in the thought of his bloated, eyeless body finally showing up on our shores.”
(No Oliver doesn’t die) Huh? What? This is insanely creepy.
“I wanted him gone from our home so as to be done with him. I wanted him dead too, so that if I couldn’t stop thinking about him and worrying about when would be the next time I’d see him, at least his death would put an end to it.”
I’m sorry?? You what?? You want to kill him??
“If I didn’t kill him, then I’d cripple him for life, so that he’d be with us in a wheelchair and never go back to the States. If he were in a wheelchair, I would always know where he was, and he’d be easy to find. I would feel superior to him and become his master, now that he was crippled.”
The quote above is really just WTF. It’s completely ableist and just plain wrong - NOBODY should ever think that way about disabled people, it’s so disrespectful and unacceptable. It shouldn’t be something the main character thinks, and it altogether shouldn’t be a line in a book.
“It made me hard, even though I didn’t know if what aroused me was her naked body lying in the sun, his next to hers, or both of theirs together.”
I- I don’t even know what would posses someone to write this. There’s something seriously wrong with this main character if he gets aroused by watching his crush and a girl lying naked on a boat.
“On impulse, I removed my bathing suit and began to put his on. I knew what I wanted, and I wanted it with the kind of intoxicated rapture that makes people take risks they would never take even with plenty of alcohol in their system. I wanted to come in his suit, and leave the evidence for him to find there.”
THIS MAN WENT INTO OLIVERS ROOM WITHOUT PERMISSION, TOOK HIS BATHING SUIT, SMELLED IT, AND PUT IT ON. HE THEN JERKED OFF IN THE BATHING SUIT ON OLIVERS PILLOW. ELIO NO THIS SHOULD NOT BE A THING
“No, I didn’t hate it at all. But what I felt was worse than hate. I didn’t want to remember, didn’t want to think about it. Just put it away. It had never happened.”
“I knew exactly what he wanted to talk about. He wanted to go over the moment when I’d almost asked him to stop.”
“I wished we hadn’t slept together.”
Elio just never seems to enjoy being with Oliver? Like, he does, but he also doesn’t. The author is unclear. But it makes it seem like it was almost a non-consensual thing between them. Which I guess it WAS consensual at the time but still, Elio hated being with Oliver and yet continued to be with him. It’s not a good lesson to put in a book.
““Don’t flush,” I’d said, “I want to look.” What I saw brought out strains of compassion, for him, for his body, for his life, which suddenly seemed so frail and vulnerable. “Our bodies won’t have secrets now,” I said as I took my turn and sat down.”
THIS IS NOT OKAY. THIS IS SO CREEPY. NONONO THIS IS NOT AN OKAY THING. WHY WAS THIS WRITTEN. WHY WAS THIS SOMETHING THE EDITOR LET HAPPEN.
“She was more than twice my age but I could have made love to her this minute”
This sounds very much like disguised biphobia from the author - it makes it seem like bisexuals will sleep with anyone and everyone just because they’re attracted to both genders. There are other quotes similar to this as well but they don’t make as much sense out-of-context. This quote is also awful because um... he’s 17?? and twice his age would be 34??! That really isn’t okay. At all.
“We’d all heard about his women when he was young, but I’d never even had an inkling of anything else. Was my father someone else? And if he was someone else, who was I?”
This quote is talking about Elio thinking maybe his dad is also bisexual, because of a talk they had. First off, the “talk” they had was awful and homophobic, and if the author was trying to make it heartfelt and accepting, he failed greatly. Secondly, this quote makes it seem like you become a different person once you come out - which you DON’T - and that’s a really bad lesson to teach.
Other things:
The writing style. It’s just NOT attractive at all, it’s so completely confusing and makes no sense. There are page-long paragraphs where dialogue it clumped together, so you really have no idea who’s saying what. And there are SO. MANY. METAPHORS. No 17-year-old thinks like that! I’d say about 70% of this book is just metaphor after metaphor after metaphor - there’s hardly any true dialogue or scenes, just explanations about what’s going on inside Elio’s head (and Elio’s head is extremely boring, sadistical, and just really creepy).
It’s SO BORING. Other than the stupid nonsense metaphors, literally nothing happens. Well, things happen, but they aren’t really things. This book lacks description - of characters, actions and places - and so even when there’s dialogue or they go somewhere and do something, I found myself skipping over large chunks of it (again, because of the insane amount of metaphors).
Elio is 17, and Oliver is 24. The 7-year age gap wouldn’t be a big deal if they were both older, but in the USA - at least - it’s an illegal relationship. It just adds to the creepiness and authoritative nature of this whole story and the author definitely should have thought about that beforehand.
The fact that they call each other by their own names - yeah, that’s the name of the book, but wHy?! It just seems really self-fulfilling and narcissistic, and the author honestly never really explains WHY it’s a thing. It makes absolutely no sense.
The peach scene. The freaking peach scene. Everything - EVERYTHING - is wrong with it. That never should have been written. I hope it’s not in the movie. I think it’s in the movie. Why is there a movie of this book?!?
A big problem I have with this is that while Elio is bisexual the author of the book is straight and obviously doesn’t view bisexuality in the best light. Elio is intimate with both a woman - Marzia - and Oliver at the same time, and doesn’t see a problem with it. At all. He even says, multiple times, he doesn’t feel a need to mention it to either of them. Even though it means he’s cheating on them both. Throughout the book he also talks about wanting to be with other women/men for no reason other than that they’re there. So to me, that’s the authors way of saying “just because the main character is bisexual doesn’t mean he actually cares about who he’s with or their emotions - as long as he’s with both genders to make him bisexual.” It’s really offensive.
Elio and Oliver don’t really have a romance or relationship - they have copious amounts of lust and confusion. If I had read this when I was younger, I would have been really confused about what love was actually meant to be. Because this is not love; there is no love or romance in this book. It’s just really boring and sadistic.
Overall: No. This is not a good book. This reads like a really bad, really long fan fiction where nothing actually happens, the author just wanted to write a book. It ends with Oliver married to someone and Elio basically alone and grumpy, and so the whole thing was pretty pointless. I think the author was trying to make the reader feel emotions, but I felt absolutely nothing the whole time (aside from boredom, that is). So I guess if you want to be bored and slightly horrified, read this book, but otherwise keep far, far away from it.
Firstly, I would like to leave some... interesting quotes from this book that might be enough to explain my rating:
“part of me didn’t mind his dying, that there was even something almost exciting in the thought of his bloated, eyeless body finally showing up on our shores.”
(No Oliver doesn’t die) Huh? What? This is insanely creepy.
“I wanted him gone from our home so as to be done with him. I wanted him dead too, so that if I couldn’t stop thinking about him and worrying about when would be the next time I’d see him, at least his death would put an end to it.”
I’m sorry?? You what?? You want to kill him??
“If I didn’t kill him, then I’d cripple him for life, so that he’d be with us in a wheelchair and never go back to the States. If he were in a wheelchair, I would always know where he was, and he’d be easy to find. I would feel superior to him and become his master, now that he was crippled.”
The quote above is really just WTF. It’s completely ableist and just plain wrong - NOBODY should ever think that way about disabled people, it’s so disrespectful and unacceptable. It shouldn’t be something the main character thinks, and it altogether shouldn’t be a line in a book.
“It made me hard, even though I didn’t know if what aroused me was her naked body lying in the sun, his next to hers, or both of theirs together.”
I- I don’t even know what would posses someone to write this. There’s something seriously wrong with this main character if he gets aroused by watching his crush and a girl lying naked on a boat.
“On impulse, I removed my bathing suit and began to put his on. I knew what I wanted, and I wanted it with the kind of intoxicated rapture that makes people take risks they would never take even with plenty of alcohol in their system. I wanted to come in his suit, and leave the evidence for him to find there.”
THIS MAN WENT INTO OLIVERS ROOM WITHOUT PERMISSION, TOOK HIS BATHING SUIT, SMELLED IT, AND PUT IT ON. HE THEN JERKED OFF IN THE BATHING SUIT ON OLIVERS PILLOW. ELIO NO THIS SHOULD NOT BE A THING
“No, I didn’t hate it at all. But what I felt was worse than hate. I didn’t want to remember, didn’t want to think about it. Just put it away. It had never happened.”
“I knew exactly what he wanted to talk about. He wanted to go over the moment when I’d almost asked him to stop.”
“I wished we hadn’t slept together.”
Elio just never seems to enjoy being with Oliver? Like, he does, but he also doesn’t. The author is unclear. But it makes it seem like it was almost a non-consensual thing between them. Which I guess it WAS consensual at the time but still, Elio hated being with Oliver and yet continued to be with him. It’s not a good lesson to put in a book.
““Don’t flush,” I’d said, “I want to look.” What I saw brought out strains of compassion, for him, for his body, for his life, which suddenly seemed so frail and vulnerable. “Our bodies won’t have secrets now,” I said as I took my turn and sat down.”
THIS IS NOT OKAY. THIS IS SO CREEPY. NONONO THIS IS NOT AN OKAY THING. WHY WAS THIS WRITTEN. WHY WAS THIS SOMETHING THE EDITOR LET HAPPEN.
“She was more than twice my age but I could have made love to her this minute”
This sounds very much like disguised biphobia from the author - it makes it seem like bisexuals will sleep with anyone and everyone just because they’re attracted to both genders. There are other quotes similar to this as well but they don’t make as much sense out-of-context. This quote is also awful because um... he’s 17?? and twice his age would be 34??! That really isn’t okay. At all.
“We’d all heard about his women when he was young, but I’d never even had an inkling of anything else. Was my father someone else? And if he was someone else, who was I?”
This quote is talking about Elio thinking maybe his dad is also bisexual, because of a talk they had. First off, the “talk” they had was awful and homophobic, and if the author was trying to make it heartfelt and accepting, he failed greatly. Secondly, this quote makes it seem like you become a different person once you come out - which you DON’T - and that’s a really bad lesson to teach.
Other things:
The writing style. It’s just NOT attractive at all, it’s so completely confusing and makes no sense. There are page-long paragraphs where dialogue it clumped together, so you really have no idea who’s saying what. And there are SO. MANY. METAPHORS. No 17-year-old thinks like that! I’d say about 70% of this book is just metaphor after metaphor after metaphor - there’s hardly any true dialogue or scenes, just explanations about what’s going on inside Elio’s head (and Elio’s head is extremely boring, sadistical, and just really creepy).
It’s SO BORING. Other than the stupid nonsense metaphors, literally nothing happens. Well, things happen, but they aren’t really things. This book lacks description - of characters, actions and places - and so even when there’s dialogue or they go somewhere and do something, I found myself skipping over large chunks of it (again, because of the insane amount of metaphors).
Elio is 17, and Oliver is 24. The 7-year age gap wouldn’t be a big deal if they were both older, but in the USA - at least - it’s an illegal relationship. It just adds to the creepiness and authoritative nature of this whole story and the author definitely should have thought about that beforehand.
The fact that they call each other by their own names - yeah, that’s the name of the book, but wHy?! It just seems really self-fulfilling and narcissistic, and the author honestly never really explains WHY it’s a thing. It makes absolutely no sense.
The peach scene. The freaking peach scene. Everything - EVERYTHING - is wrong with it. That never should have been written. I hope it’s not in the movie. I think it’s in the movie. Why is there a movie of this book?!?
A big problem I have with this is that while Elio is bisexual the author of the book is straight and obviously doesn’t view bisexuality in the best light. Elio is intimate with both a woman - Marzia - and Oliver at the same time, and doesn’t see a problem with it. At all. He even says, multiple times, he doesn’t feel a need to mention it to either of them. Even though it means he’s cheating on them both. Throughout the book he also talks about wanting to be with other women/men for no reason other than that they’re there. So to me, that’s the authors way of saying “just because the main character is bisexual doesn’t mean he actually cares about who he’s with or their emotions - as long as he’s with both genders to make him bisexual.” It’s really offensive.
Elio and Oliver don’t really have a romance or relationship - they have copious amounts of lust and confusion. If I had read this when I was younger, I would have been really confused about what love was actually meant to be. Because this is not love; there is no love or romance in this book. It’s just really boring and sadistic.
Overall: No. This is not a good book. This reads like a really bad, really long fan fiction where nothing actually happens, the author just wanted to write a book. It ends with Oliver married to someone and Elio basically alone and grumpy, and so the whole thing was pretty pointless. I think the author was trying to make the reader feel emotions, but I felt absolutely nothing the whole time (aside from boredom, that is). So I guess if you want to be bored and slightly horrified, read this book, but otherwise keep far, far away from it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Infidelity and Sexual content
kores_books7's review against another edition
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pedophilia
joita_mitra's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship
lenamar's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Well this book was a rollercoaster.
I started reading it sitting in school in one of my free hours and only one page in I said to my friend: "I already love this book"
I was amazed by how detailed the author has written this book. And this wonderful poetic writing style accompanies us through the whole book. Never have I read a book with figure of speech. The intertwining of philosophy, art and music is beautiful and unique. There aren't many authors who are able to write like this, one worthy comparison can be drawn to Donna Tartt.
Content wise, well let's put it this way, it was everything but not what I was expecting. I thought I would read a cute and fun LGBTQIA lovestory. Dont get me wrong, I love to be surprised.
Written from the point of view of Elio who is clearly obsessing over our dearest Oliver, it made me feel and think things I never would've dreamt of.
I had to put the book down several times out of (I'm not even sure how to call this feeling) a mixture of secondhand embarrassment and disgust, I think. Never will I see peaches the same way as I did before reading the book. There were some passages that made shake my head, scream at the characters but also laugh. And I loved every second of it. I love it when books make me feel this way or another. And believe me when I tell you that what I felt wasn't innocent. My poor brother next door when I started yelling at the book at 2 in the morning...
Anyway, what also fascinated me was that the characters, let's take Elio's thoughts as the example, thought and acted so raw, humane and uncensored. What would be a taboo for the majority of authors to write like this.
What I didn't like about the plot was the adult-child relationship. Mentally I had the feeling that Elio wasn't 17 but 14/15 and Oliver around 30. In reality they have a 7 year age gap but still, I couldn't get this out of my mind and it stopped me from being happy for both of them many times.
My favourite part was probably when Oliver and Elio went to Rome and on their first evening, they went to this kind of book party. This was so beautiful and reminded me a lot of "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt
The fact that time didnt seem to matter at all, was pretty fascinating for me. No matter how late or early it was, there was always something happening. And the people were so open. It was pretty heartwarming.For example, when they were in Rome and were left alone in the bar because the waiter trusted them. Or when they went to this big market place or whatever it was and they sang and danced with complete strangers.
All in all it's a masterpiece which deserves the five stars, but I didn't give them, because my mind cant deal with the mental ages, the foot fetish and the possible fruit fetish. Sorry André
I started reading it sitting in school in one of my free hours and only one page in I said to my friend: "I already love this book"
I was amazed by how detailed the author has written this book. And this wonderful poetic writing style accompanies us through the whole book. Never have I read a book with figure of speech. The intertwining of philosophy, art and music is beautiful and unique. There aren't many authors who are able to write like this, one worthy comparison can be drawn to Donna Tartt.
Content wise, well let's put it this way, it was everything but not what I was expecting. I thought I would read a cute and fun LGBTQIA lovestory. Dont get me wrong, I love to be surprised.
Written from the point of view of Elio who is clearly obsessing over our dearest Oliver, it made me feel and think things I never would've dreamt of.
I had to put the book down several times out of (I'm not even sure how to call this feeling) a mixture of secondhand embarrassment and disgust, I think. Never will I see peaches the same way as I did before reading the book. There were some passages that made shake my head, scream at the characters but also laugh. And I loved every second of it. I love it when books make me feel this way or another. And believe me when I tell you that what I felt wasn't innocent. My poor brother next door when I started yelling at the book at 2 in the morning...
Anyway, what also fascinated me was that the characters, let's take Elio's thoughts as the example, thought and acted so raw, humane and uncensored. What would be a taboo for the majority of authors to write like this.
What I didn't like about the plot was the adult-child relationship. Mentally I had the feeling that Elio wasn't 17 but 14/15 and Oliver around 30. In reality they have a 7 year age gap but still, I couldn't get this out of my mind and it stopped me from being happy for both of them many times.
The fact that time didnt seem to matter at all, was pretty fascinating for me. No matter how late or early it was, there was always something happening. And the people were so open. It was pretty heartwarming.
All in all it's a masterpiece which deserves the five stars, but I didn't give them, because my mind cant deal with the mental ages, the foot fetish and the possible fruit fetish. Sorry André
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Antisemitism, Biphobia, Child death, Excrement, Homophobia, Transphobia, and Vomit
anouverlinden_'s review against another edition
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
one word: grooming
That is the really the only thing (summary) I can give about this book.
I went in with really low expectations (because I had read about the problematic elements in this book) but this really exceeded them and not in a good way.
This story is just glorifying grooming and I just don't get why people are praising this book as some amazing love-story because it's not. Actually, it's far from it.
In this book we have a 17-year old boy who has a crush on this 24-year old man. Oliver should have just kept away from Elio.
There is no justifying the actions in this book. The whole time Oliver is manipulating Elio and it just physically hurt reading this.
I get that people also praise this book for its beautiful writing and I guess it is very poetic with beautiful lines (only a few tho) but it's still not mindblowing.
Throughout the whole book we have to read Elio's inner monologue, which is... very painful. For an inner monologue your character has to have some sort of personality, it has to have something interesting to say, it has to interesting to read. Well, Elio has no personality, he has nothing interesting to say and it definitely is not interesting to read. The whole time he was 'aan het zagen' (as we say in Flemish, which loosely translates to whining, nagging) and let me tell you it was very boring.
I would not recommend this book at all. I just read it because I had to know what all the hype was about and if it was really as bad as people say it is (IT IS).
If you do decide to pick this up, don't expect romance because you won't get any (only very descriptive sex-scenes and not in the best way).
I will NOT be reading the second book because I love my life a little too much for that.
P.S.: the peach scene scarred me for life, I had to stop multipule times reading that scene (it could've just been left out but I guess not).
That is the really the only thing (summary) I can give about this book.
I went in with really low expectations (because I had read about the problematic elements in this book) but this really exceeded them and not in a good way.
This story is just glorifying grooming and I just don't get why people are praising this book as some amazing love-story because it's not. Actually, it's far from it.
In this book we have a 17-year old boy who has a crush on this 24-year old man. Oliver should have just kept away from Elio.
There is no justifying the actions in this book. The whole time Oliver is manipulating Elio and it just physically hurt reading this.
I get that people also praise this book for its beautiful writing and I guess it is very poetic with beautiful lines (only a few tho) but it's still not mindblowing.
Throughout the whole book we have to read Elio's inner monologue, which is... very painful. For an inner monologue your character has to have some sort of personality, it has to have something interesting to say, it has to interesting to read. Well, Elio has no personality, he has nothing interesting to say and it definitely is not interesting to read. The whole time he was 'aan het zagen' (as we say in Flemish, which loosely translates to whining, nagging) and let me tell you it was very boring.
I would not recommend this book at all. I just read it because I had to know what all the hype was about and if it was really as bad as people say it is (IT IS).
If you do decide to pick this up, don't expect romance because you won't get any (only very descriptive sex-scenes and not in the best way).
I will NOT be reading the second book because I love my life a little too much for that.
P.S.: the peach scene scarred me for life, I had to stop multipule times reading that scene (it could've just been left out but I guess not).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pedophilia
achillesmatt24's review against another edition
Just really really gross and sexual (also possible rape?? IDK IT WAS WEIRD I DIDNT LIKE THIS AT ALL)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pedophilia and Sexual content