“Fate works forward, backward, and crisscross sideways and couldn’t care less how we scan its purpose with our rickety little before and afters.”

A follow-up to his bestseller, Call Me By Your Name, André Aciman’s newest novel Find Me continues the love story of Elio and Oliver. Reading more of an epilogue, rather than a sequel, Find Me is set more than fifteen years between the two novels. The author is able to recover the, almost, forgotten romance by exploring the different facets of love from the point of view of Samuel (Elio’s Father), Elio, and Oliver. Aciman’s story of Elio and Oliver takes a contemporary approach by highlighting the journey that returns to the characters’ romance once again. He puts his focus on the little loves, and desires, of the characters that inevitably drive them back together; unfolding through themes of loneliness, of commitment, of fear, and of the intangible idea of soulmates.

Find Me is divided into four sections, as three individual journeys that accumulate to the final love story. The back and forth nature of the novel’s timeline is confusing at first, but the reader adjusts quickly, discovering that the structure is meant to mirror the characters’ journey towards true love; it is not a linear experience. Instead, love is ever moving, bending with the obstacles, and swaying to the music of life — music which is vital to the love Elio and Oliver harbor.  The novel’s structure plays on the heartstrings of the reader because Aciman does not explicitly express who, or when, a person is speaking. This narrative element leaves an air of mystery surrounding the novel which lends itself into the mystery of what is love, what is fate, and how are the two connected. 

Find Me speaks to the complexity of true love placed between excitement and sorrow, between anxiety and thrill, and between heartbreak and lovemaking. Aciman does not set an age limit on love and attraction; he emphasizes the only determent in true love is the surge of mixed emotions consuming your body, only occurring at the mere thought of your partner. True love is felt at full force in Find Me for each character in different ways. Samuel and Miranda’s love evokes the youthful and explorative nature, when you want to see the world again through their eyes. Elio and Michel’s love is tender and nurturing, one that desires the intimacy of touch. Oliver’s attraction to Paul and Erica is the adrenaline pumping attraction that you know is wrong, but you undoubtedly crave. Above all, true love is experienced through the rekindling of Elio and Oliver, who despite twenty years apart, still yearn for each other every night, still consume each other’s thoughts, and still feel the touch of each other late into the night hours. Their love is one that continued to grow with every second of their existence because they had the courage to not give up. 

“Though neither of us sought out the other it was only because we had never really parted, and that regardless of where we were, who we were with, and whatever stood in our way, all he needed when the time was right was simply to come and find me.”