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Chapter Overview
Chapter 1: AudiobookHub Recommendation
Chapter 2: — Later!
Chapter 3: — The Summer Resident
Chapter 4: — Ice, Sunshine, Repeat
Chapter 5: — The Wrong Wars
Chapter 6: — Monet’s Berm
Chapter 7: — Grow Up. Midnight.
Chapter 8: — The Peach and the Price
Chapter 9: — Rome, San Clemente, Via dell’Anima
Chapter 10: — Ghost Spots
Description
In a sun-bleached villa on the Italian coast, seventeen-year-old Elio watches another summer resident arrive: Oliver, a confident twenty-four-year-old academic helping Elio’s father. Elio expects six weeks of irritation and small talk. Instead, he gets obsession—an electric, humiliating, exhilarating need that turns ordinary rituals—breakfasts, swims, bike rides, music—into tests of courage.
As Elio and Oliver circle each other with jokes, avoidance, and coded gestures, the tension becomes unbearable. When the truth finally surfaces, their relationship ignites into intimacy that feels both like discovery and like coming home—yet is shadowed by fear, shame, and the approaching end of summer. A brief escape to Rome intensifies what they can’t keep.
Years later, memory refuses to behave. The story becomes a map of “ghost spots”—places and words that keep summoning what was lived, what was lost, and what never fully leaves the body.
Who Should Listen
- Listeners who want an intense, lyrical coming-of-age romance where longing and hesitation are the main battlefield.
- Fans of emotionally complicated love stories about timing, secrecy, and the cost of finally saying what you mean.
- Anyone drawn to character-driven fiction that follows the afterlife of first love across years and memory.