Lie With Me

Receive this book in a very good condition, Nice packaging.

Well packed , I got a phone book and I got the hardcover for just 575 rs

5 🌟 Annoyingly imperfectly perfect and poignant, I just couldn't keep my eyes and mind away from the very first sentence of this book. I haven't read anything that is this breezy and tugging. The words are raw, the emotions direct and the characters rather bound to secrecy all their lives. I got completely immersed in these mere few pages, got so lost and covered with emotions in between the lines that I simply had to finish up this book in one sitting. And yes, it's my perfect kind of read: precise, character driven, straightforward with issues that matter. I felt the pain and the beauty of the three main characters. The words are striking. The lines are so quotable. The short book is just full of feelings and emotions; and most of all real. The story spans a lifetime of decades starting it when he was seventeen. I thought this was going to be just a book about young adult/lgbt/coming of age but damn, it turned out to be lot more than that. It talks about LGBT issues of course, but also homophobia, suicide, religion and writing in depths. I love this book so much. Easily one of my most memorable reads of the year. #lgbtqreads #lgbtq🌈 #bookrecommendations #january2020reads #memorableread #poignant #liewithme #liewithmebook #phillippebesson

Of the recent books I have tried to review I couldn't write enough accolades to the astounding work of Philippe Besson and ofcourse Molly Ringwald (translater) for 'Lie with me' published by Penguin Random House UK is absolutely heart touching and the writing is raw, poignant with beautiful flow. It literally has no flaw. The book discovers love affair of the author and Thomas Andreau from teenage to the end of their lives which is well defined in the book although they separate at early age. Memories have a strong impact on all of us. The constant fear of being revealed gay suffers throughout entire novel and will get you chills. The book is painfully beautiful. The idea of leaving, staying and loving are expressed remarkably. I couldn't stand to the idea of Thomas dying with such tragic sorrow. This book is sure to touch your soul and make you cry by the end. The tone of book is lucid, sharp and sometimes tragically and sarcastically funny over hard times. This book is a classic!

I wonder if it was a fiction or a memoir; the candid nature of this prose, the honesty that bled through its pages. In a matter of three hours and thirty-five minutes, Besson has narrated what it was to be a gay youth, a man in a heterosexual world. Yes, it’s a love story too. The story of first love, a homosexual love, to be precise, because it isn’t the same as a man-woman’s love at all. A kind of love Aciman told us about in CMBYN. But Besson was also obsessed with youth, the impermanence of it, the vulnerabilities, the choices, the lies, the happiness and the heartbreaks youth meant/mean for gay men. Times may have changed, structures may have acquired newer dimensions; what remains is the forbidden, silent history that continues to echo in heterosexual spaces. This book and many others scare me. They make me anxious of the life I have ahead of me. It tells me of a life out there written by hurt and loneliness. Of longing, so desperate and intense that would only be quenched by creative endeavours, or ranging ambitions. But what of the heart, the body that seeks to lean into another? The sighing days and nights. Although I hope this book remains a story of bygone days, I cannot thank Besson for writing this, Molly Ringwald for brilliantly translating such honest emotions and Jacques Roy for giving it the voice that gave birth to Thomas and Philippe before my eyes.

There isn’t enough gay literature in the world. Till there is. Till you chance upon a book so strong and uplifting and melancholic at the same time, that you don’t know how what to make of your emotions anymore. Life is also nothing but a series of the ones that got away. The ones that remind us of what could have been, almost in another life. Lie with Me is that kind of book about first love, its insecurities, its jealousies, and with a longing so deep that it will strike you hard, with the turn of every page. Come to think of it, it doesn’t matter whether this book had straight or gay lovers, the story is riveting, moving, and so powerful that one would only focus on that. It is universal, because love is that way. The loss of a loved one is beyond hurtful. The idea of a loved one going away, leaving you behind to start a new life is heartbreaking for anyone, gay or straight. Given that, Lie with Me speaks to everyone. The language of love and loss is known to all. Back to the book – it is about a love affair between two teenage boys in 1980s France and how then it has repercussions right till 2016. The book spans thirty-six years – but it is the affair part of the book that hits you the most. At least that’s what happened to me while I read it. Philippe and Thomas meet as boys and the affair takes place by chance, altering their worlds, ridden by passion, and the understanding that this kind of love better be hidden. Besson writes honestly. There is this nostalgia – this melancholy feeling of abandonment that is constant throughout this short novel. Everything is brought to life. The touches, the smells, the betrayals, the small jealousies, the joy of being together, the said and more so the unsaid. Besson’s writing hurts you. It is meant to, I guess. It brought back all the memories of my first love – everything all rolled into one. Some happy, some sad, and mostly melancholic. Just the way it should have happened while reading this book. Lie with Me is a book that stays with you. It sticks itself on your existence. It speaks intimately and whispers in your ears – secrets long gone by, secrets we think we have buried till they resurface, threatening the fabric of our being. It tells you stories of love, of happiness, of what it felt like – of summer sun, and how it felt when you first made love and let passion overtake everything else. Molly Ringwald brings to life a translation that I am grateful for and will always be. We need to tell stories of all kind. We need stories to relate to. We need stories that make us want to tell someone that we love them, for now.

While the high school romance with Thomas was brief and exhilarating, the beauty of this novel was in Philippe's encounters with Lucas. The title should reflect that instead. I don't care for graphic descriptions of sexual intimacy. Telling it well is a delicate art that not many people are gifted with, and this novel is a good example where the details left me feeling icky instead of aflutter. Best just mention them in passing instead but that's just me. Overall, a somewhat decent effort. I felt heartbroken for (view spoiler) Hence, there was no closure for me. 3.5/5* rounded up.

I had a hard time moving on from this book. What an incredible thing this short book was - Intimate and moving, it reads like a memoir. It is achingly poignant, lyrical, and heartbreakingly poignant, evoking the intense emotions of first love as they unfold. This book made me ugly cry, Philippe Besson took me on a journey and I had a hard time finding my way back. “Everything is in its place, everything reassures me. Except that I miss Thomas. I miss him terribly. And that changes everything. Have you noticed how the most beautiful landscapes lose their brilliance as soon as our thoughts prevent us from seeing them properly?” My gosh, the writing in this book was so beautiful and poetic that I can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like in French, as that's how it was originally written. The books that appeal to me most are retrospective in nature. As the novel progresses, the characters reflect on their lives and the events that led them to where they are now. And, Philippe Besson perfectly evokes the sense of nostalgia, that you can feel radiate off the pages. We do not know if the book is based on the author's own life, but the protagonist is called Philippe, and the novel is dedicated to Thomas Andrieu. However, I don't believe that's significant. Ultimately, it's the journey the characters take, and most importantly, the message we, the readers, take away from the book. A new favorite book of mine, I think it might be worth brushing up on my French so I can read it in its original language. “I’m seventeen years old. I don’t know then that one day I won’t be seventeen. I don’t know that youth doesn't last, that it’s only a moment, and then it disappears and by the time you finally realize it, it’s too late. It’s finished, vanished, lost.”

Surprised by the translator but thought since I can read French I am buying it in French. This is a sad coming of age story but not typical. The shortness of the work gives it a breathlessness. It reminded me of the extremely short story by Bernard Cooper, "Capiche?", 5 paragraphs. I liked it from the beginning and read only three pages per day to make it last. I also bought it for a friend as a gift. I still do not know if it is true or false, I am hoping for the latter. Good story writing, excellent writing.

Compassionate short novel recounting adolescent love between two French teenagers in the 1980s. Exquisite writing lifts this novel above the average. Reads more like a memoir than fiction. A classic work which leaves a deep impression on the reader.

A beautiful but aching tale of first love, shame, and the devastation that comes from denying who you truly are. Two young men, seventeen and on the brink of adulthood, spend one transformative summer together. Many years later, one of them — now a successful writer — looks back on that time after encountering a man who reminds him of his first love.