Let's get this bit over and done with. Yes, it's translated by Molly Ringwald - she of The Breakfast Club - but, tbh, I hardly noticed that it wasn't naturally written in English so I guess it's a big thumbs-up from me with regard to her translating skills. As to her interpretation, well, I have no idea, I can't read the original to compare. Secondly, this book is only split up into a few chapters, each depicting a time change. Indeed, chapter two starts at about 67% but, each chapter is split up into sections which are easily identified, so there are natural breaks for you to pop the kettle on or whathaveyou! If you think of each chapter as a Part and the breaks as chapters then you'll get on just fine. So, famous author Philippe is being interviewed about his latest book at a hotel. He looks up and sees a familiar face, one from his past. This triggers a long trip down memory lane as we go back into his past, his schooldays, to the time he met Thomas who he went on to love and lose. It's beautiful, it's tragic and heartbreaking, at the same time, completely intimate. Forbidden love - indeed, the love that dare not speak its name - at school, in the 80s, in a rural part of France. The dice did not fall well for young Philippe and his first love. And then, so many years later, to see that familiar face. And what that meeting triggers. Oh my days! How much of this book is real, maybe none, maybe parts, maybe more, I don't know but the author has definitely written from the heart. Whether names and events have been changed to protect the innocent or if none of this really happened, well, it doesn't matter. What matters is that all the way through it felt real. It came alive from each and every page. The love, the secrecy, the what if... The knowing that what they had was fleeting as Philippe was never going to stay and Thomas couldn't leave... Gosh was I in a right mess when I finished the book. Reminded me of how I felt when I read The Front Runner (Patricia Nell Warren) for the first time. It's catapulted itself into my top 10 books of all time (and I read more than 300/year and am quite old already so it has a lot of competition) and is one that I will definitely re-read - a much shorter list. I almost wish I was more proficient in French than just my O'Level so that I could read this story exactly as the author wrote it. Maybe one day...

“Because you will leave and we will stay.” A powerful story about first love and its enduring impact on your life. The novel takes place in rural France in the 1980s where two 17-year-old boys have secret relationship. One, our narrator, is effeminate and faces ridicule from his school peers, but ultimately knows he will be able to leave his small town to somewhere more accepting. The other is Thomas who is able to hide his sexuality but feels trapped by his family circumstance as he is relied on to take over the family farm. Alongside the gorgeous love story, Besson raises the ideas and themes of life being wasted and whether it is our circumstances that confine us or our own ability to break away from those circumstances. As we hear the story from the perspective of an older Philippe, we learn about how he has grown as a gay man and how homophobia, AIDs and his relationships have shaped his life. We’re also able to piece together snippets from Thomas’s life whose path has taken a different course. The book is heart-breaking but it is so worth it. One of the best depictions of gay love I have read.

LIE WITH ME – PHILIPPE BESSON I read this novel in advance of publication through NetGalley in return for an honest review. If you prefer novels with explosions and action heroes or overwrought prose like some I have reviewed recently, this novel is not for you. Translated from the French by Molly Ringwald, this is a novel that starts even before you realise that it is the novel you are reading, and is written with understated prose, weaving a simple story with extraordinary dexterity and aplomb. The tale is written in the first person by a well-known author, looking back over his life, and in particular his relationship in his teens with another boy and how that relationship affects the remainder of their lives. The layers of wisdom and emotion that are portrayed through simple words, elegantly told, create a level of sophistication that few authors ever obtain. Brilliant.

This short novel is a tale of first love and sexual awakening which is universal in its appeal. Now in his fifties the narrator, a writer, tells of how, as a 17 year old he had a crush on a fellow pupil Thomas . The affair is brief and passionate but Thomas never seems to fully give of himself and inevitably it ends. The narrator goes on to be a writer and to accept and write about his homosexuality but Thomas' future is less auspicious. I'm still not clear about whether it is memoir or fiction but does it matter? I love this book which is full of longing and love. The translation seems to be very good but I have to confess that I'll be buying a copy in the original french. This is a book which will stay with you whether you are male or female, gay or straight. Superb. Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin for the ARC.

Lie With Me is gorgeous, aching love story of young desire, struggle between freedom and fear, but also the disappearing youth and changes that growing up brings. In the setting of rural France in the 1980s, a fragile and forbidden relationship blooms between Philippe and Thomas. Besson tells the love story in lyrical language, with magnificent flow that makes reader live the moment with the boys. Absolutely unforgettable, Philippe and Thomas's story will stay with me for a long time. I barely have words to describe the novel, it is one of those best experienced by just reading it. I highly recommend it, it has been some time since I have read anything as aching and beautiful as Lie With Me. Besides reading the book, I listened the audiobook and I highly recommend it; it is amazing, the narrator nails the feelings and the flow of this hauntingly beautiful novel.