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André Aciman's debut novel, Call Me by Your Name , utterly blew me away. I remember reading and re-reading paragraphs, mesmerized by his poetic language, and at times dissolving into tears from the emotional power of the story. While I could never seem to get into his second novel, and didn't kno

2.8 " reluctant, conflicted, disappointing" stars !! The Most(est) Disappointing Read of 2017 Award I really struggled with much of this book. Mr. Aciman is an immensely talented writer but has great difficulty in distillation as well as writing a story that I care very much about. His writing is occ Leggi tutto

I forgot to mention one more thing when I wrote this this morning... PLEASE TAKE A LOOK AT LARRY'S review!!! Its wonderful-- and he was my inspiration for reading this!!! "We make assumptions about how our lives are being charted without knowing that we are making these assumptions--which is the beau Leggi tutto

There was an emotional detachedness to the novel for me. Never once did I feel any sort of deep connection to the protagonist, which left me feeling listless the whole way through. I guess I expected more— something along the lines of the sweeping romanticism and longing of Aciman’s first novel— but Leggi tutto

The "Enigma Variations" referenced in the title are a set of orchestral pieces by the English composer, Edward Elgar, consisting of 14 variations on a common melodic theme. The use of the word "Enigma" in the title has led classical music lovers to wonder if there may be some hidden puzzle buried in Leggi tutto

This book blew me away, in a way I was not expecting. It is told in five vignettes/stories, all which took unexpected turns. But these were not shocking story twists that would get old, but surprising moves by characters that ended up feeling more realistic than most writing. The characters get to b Leggi tutto

“I live for this. And if this is all there is, well, this is all there is.” No one understands and communicates the myriad desires and agonies of the human heart quite like Andre Aciman. This series of five connected stories follows the life and loves of a bisexual man named Paul from adolescence to Leggi tutto

I am a huge fan of Aciman, but this just did not work for me. The strongest section is the first; there is little to tie the five together, so this is really just a loosely bound collection of disparate novellas. Plus the fact that the central protagonist is so reprehensibly louche and dissolute tha Leggi tutto

The homosexual desire here was so much more convincing than the heterosexual desire, I was surprised to find the author is straight. Thus the last two chapters didn't work for me at all, although you need to get to the last page to find out something which (I suppose) is important. Aciman's writing

n-n-oooo-oooo *in jessie j’s voice* boy was this book a drag! i generally appreciate character driven books but reading this felt like a chore and guess what, i hate doing chores. this has got to be longest 266 pages i’ve ever read, even after skim reading the whole book! i found the main protago Leggi tutto