Cover Image: Lie With Me

Lie With Me

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"This feeling of love, it transports me, it makes me happy. But it also consumes me and makes me miserable, the way all impossible loves are miserable."

Philippe is a famous writer being interviewed at a hotel in Bordeaux when he sees a handsome man walk by. The man jars Philippe's memory, reminding him of his first love, when he was in his last year of high school in 1984.

Philippe is the studious one, shy yet fiercely intelligent. He has already been marked by his peers as "different"; he bears their shouted and whispered insults, and wants nothing more than to blend in. Thomas is quiet, rarely speaks yet is often spoken to, and is popular among his peers. He is handsome, so he catches the attention of many of the female students.

The two have never spoken, yet Philippe is inexplicably drawn to Thomas. He watches him, observes him, but doesn't think Thomas notices him (or even knows who he is), and Philippe is unsure of how he feels about that fact. Does he want Thomas to know what their peers think of him, the names they've called him?

One day, Thomas approaches Philippe. He fears that Thomas might have seen him staring, might want to beat him up. But instead, Thomas asks if he might want to go to lunch in town instead of eat in the school lunchroom. He agrees, but doesn't understand what Thomas wants from him. During lunch, Thomas tells him he is struggling with his sexuality, and he can no longer fight these feelings in silence.

When Philippe asks why Thomas has chosen him, he replies, "Because you are not like all the others, because I don't see anyone but you and you don't even realize it."

The two quickly fall into a secret relationship—mostly sexual, although there certainly are overtones of romance. Outside of their encounters, they pretend not to know each other, and make no move to declare their feelings for one another. Inherently, Thomas knows that when high school is done, Philippe will leave their small French town to make his way in the world, leaving Thomas behind. And despite the intensity of their unspoken feelings, both know that this is their trajectory.

Can we ever forget the raw emotions, the intensity, the longing of our first true love? How does that relationship affect the rest of our lives? In Lie with Me, Philippe Besson poignantly captures those feelings, the way every fiber of your being is affected, the way you want nothing more than that person and cannot bear the thought of being apart. And how you mourn the end of that relationship, how it feels like no pain you've ever experienced, so much more than your heart can bear.

Besson and Molly Ringwald, who translated the novel from the French, paints a beautiful, emotional picture of a man who has made something of his life as was always expected, but when he is reminded of his first love, reminisces about that glorious yet painful time, and how indelibly their lives have changed in the years since.

Lie with Me has been called "the French Brokeback Mountain," and while there are no cowboys, and this book didn't quite make me sob the way that movie did, there is a tremendous amount of poignancy, emotion, and beauty to be had in this story. Ringwald's translation felt flawless to me—quite often when I read translated novels I find some awkwardness in the syntax or the way some expressions are relayed.

"That singular moment. The pure urgency of it. There were circumstances—a series of coincidences and simultaneous desire. There was something in the atmosphere, something in the time and place, that brought us together."

What a gorgeous, moving book this was.

NetGalley and Scribner provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available! To be published April 30, 2019.

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Upon finishing this short book, I think I'll need some time to develop my thoughts. It requires more time from the reader than it appears based on length.

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"I feel this desire swarming in my belly and running up my spine. But I have to constantly contain and compress it so that it doesn't betray me in front of the others. Because I've already understood that desire is visible."

Philippe Besson is an extraordinary writer with a soul stirring lyrical prose that left me breathless at times.

In Lie With Me, Besson takes the reader into the vulnerable mind of a 17 year old gay boy, Philippe, as he embarks on a clandestine affair with a classmate, Thomas, eventually falling in in love with the boy he knows he can't keep.

Philippe's delicate and pure nature are the heart of this book and the author conveys his pain and confusion exquisitely. Though it is never addressed, I suspect that this book is at least partially autobiographical which only lended to the emotion it invoked in me

My only critique would be that I felt, at times, that the author veered too far off course leaving me wanting more of Philippe's thoughts and his experiences as a gay boy trying to navigate his way through France in 1984.

NOTE: This is a short story, only 90 pages on my Kindle.
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I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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This quiet, small, and beautiful novel takes place over decades of two characters' lives. The story is told from the perspective of one of them when they were teenagers and then again a few decades later and then again about ten years after that. This not a plot-rich story. It's not about what happens but it's about youth, identity, and love.

It's about connection and how brief but powerful connections can (and do) have lasting impact on our lives. I originally wanted to read this book because I thought it might be like [book:Call Me By Your Name|36336078] which I loved. And parts of this story might have similarities to that story but to me the two felt very different.

The prose in this novel is very sparse, very clean. It's so stark that the emotions come to the surface that much more. I have never read Besson before and it sounds like he is a famous writer and this might be his style. At first, I found it jarring but, over time, I really appreciated the space it provided for me.

This is not a happy story. In fact, I would say it's a really sad story but it's not presented in a way that makes you feel the sadness on the surface like some melodramatic books do. It's subtle and quiet and so the sadness I felt was deeper and quieter.

Overall, it was a really beautiful story and I am excited to have discovered a new-to-me author. I am looking forward to reading more of his books.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in return for an honest review.

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I was highly anticipating getting into this read for an LGBTQ love story with the setting of France, and places I've never been to felt too good to pass up. Once I began reading, however, I was turned off by the style and diction of the piece. I am not sure if this is the fault of the author, Besson, or the translator, but the writing is underdone and not complex, resembling a ten-year-old's journal. No line surprises me nor enchants me. And "tell" is more practiced than "show" for instance, in the sentence "but let's come back to that winter morning in 1984" is just one example of bland storytelling lacking in originality. It is a shame that I could not connect with this book because the synopsis sounded so promising, but there's plenty more LGBTQ books out there with characters and prose that shine.

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