Aciman evokes the passing of time in rich, meandering prose, rebuilding 1960s Rome in sentences suffused with light and sound and memories ... Both an affecting coming-of-age story and a timely, distinctive description of the haunted lives of refugees.
This is not, in style or spirit, a sad book. It’s filled with canny adaptiveness and invention ... Aciman is a sensitive and passionate writer, and this volume’s packed with human incident ... A brave, sensuous, tender chronicle.
Aciman isn’t merely turning the yellowed pages of a family album, and his storytelling skills, always at their sharpest and least self-indulgent in his nonfiction, hardly ever desert him here ... Convincing.
The book is a cornucopia of wonderful impressions and emotions, some so elusive as to challenge, if not defy, verbalisation. It’s a superb portrait of a complex city through the eyes of a complex teenager, on an exciting journey through this unpredictable life.
The book improves hugely in its second half ... Lovers, or potential lovers, performing their uncertain dance: this is where the tedium burns off and the book grips.
With incandescent prose and vibrant imagery, André Aciman evokes the rich, kaleidoscopic and sensual experiences of his coming-of-age ... A gem of a memoir that sparkles with light that reflects off every facet of Aciman’s pivotal year.