This book is sold as a new CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, and that I think is a mistake. It sets a tough bar, and LIE WITH ME does not clear it. It’s hard for a short novel not to feel insubstantial, or slight, and this one falls into that trap. It feels like a little summary of a relationship, the outline for an idea for a novel, rather than the novel itself.
It tells the story of a brief romance between two boys in high school in a provincial French town in the 1980s. One is a farmer’s son, and he tells the other that of course ‘you will get out’ while he will not. This proves sadly prophetic. They never see each other again after the last day of high school. We find out eventually that the farmer’s son did indeed never get out, and worse than that he ended up married to some poor girl he got pregnant.
So, it’s a good little story about missing out on your life. Just not nearly so good as CALL ME BY YOUR NAME.