Andre Aciman has the most captivating storytelling style that just draws you in, even to the most unexpected situations, and just enthralls your whole being from start to finish.

André Aciman is an absolute genius, and this non-fiction piece is a true reflection of this. While categorised as “Biography & Memoir”, My Roman Year reads less like a reflection of the past and more like a narrative. As the title states, we follow a young Aciman as he spends a year in Rome, Italy after his family’s forced immigration from Alexandria, Egypt. This is an introspective work that covers his experience as the new man of the house, in a country where he doesn’t speak the language, and with nothing but the stuff he could quickly pack. I found this novel thought-provoking and insightful, with the alienation and discomfort caused by such a drastic event really resonating with me.

This book was total perfection. Andre Aciman at his absolute, most heartbreaking best. His exploration of familial love and coming-of-age between cultures and continents is masterfully done here. Every page is so full of love and uncertainty. I could read this again and again and again. What a joy.

All encompassing and simply wonderful. A delight to read!
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC.

My Roman Year is a journey through a year in the life of the author Andre Aciman when as a teenager his family was expelled from Egypt and sought sanctuary in Rome with family that were already living there. With the complex mix of characters that make up his family, the mix of loyalties to different countries and different sides of the family, the fall from having being wealthy in Eqypt to surviving in Italy and the time in his life make it a hard year for Andre but a beautifully written, fascinating story for the reader.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read My Roman Year.

For someone who loves Rome, this is an incredibly enjoyable book. All the characters and their interactions are raw, realistic and often very amusing. But the main, stand out character is Rome as a city. I loved reading about the sights, the people, the smells, the food, the bookshop. I enjoyed getting to know the Via Clelia and its motley array of characters. I also really enjoyed the brief interludes in Paris and the recollections of Alexandria. This was a fascinating exploration of belonging, family, love and where we call home. It is also a really interesting portrait of the role of languages and literature in our lives and how they can both facilitate and encumber communication. This is explored both through the narrator‘s multilingualism, his passion for literature and reading, sometimes at the expense of real human interaction, and his deaf mother‘s interactions with the deaf and hearing communities. It was beautifully written and I cannot recommend it enough.

A new book from André Aciman, especially a memoir, is always a reason to celebrate. His writing consistently carries a sense of gentle nostalgia and longing that I find deeply appealing. In his latest memoir, the narrative unfolds so much like a novel that it's easy to forget you're reading non-fiction. This memoir reflects on the year Aciman spent in Rome as a young man, following his family's expulsion from Egypt, a period he first explored so vividly in Out of Egypt.

"Writing is intended to dig out the fault lines where truth and dissembling shift places. Or is meant to bury them even deeper?"

André Aciman came to global attention through the success of his novel Call Me By Your Name and the subsequent sequel Find Me.

My Roman Year is an autobiographical account of one teenage year lived in Rome in 1967.

André, his parents, brother and other relatives are forced to leave Egypt - with his mother and brother and a large number of suitcases they arrive in Italy to be 'housed' by great uncle Claude- whose pomposity and sleight of hand in character is continually hiding the truth of his own existence.

The family are housed in Via Clelia. A street in Aciman's teenage eyes is not one to be proud of- never revealing where he lives to fellow school pupils.

Aciman weaves a story of a young man who knows he is in a transitory location- never fully recognising how much he comes to love the city and often fighting to not fit in- a partial sense of snobbery is evident. Continually found with a book in his hand; with a love of Paris and a desire to live in New York and not fully connecting with the Romans he meets, Aciman feels slightly aloof . But the main joy of this book is the essence of the areas of Rome he visits, the people he meets who open their doors to him and also the relationship between his parents and their desires for him to succeed.

André Aciman's parents never wanted to be together and during the book live apart - it is their characters that bring the book alive; his mother's deafness and initial loneliness but efforts to make friends and be part of the local area and his father's dreams of success and love of the Arts that he shares with Aciman.

This is very much a book about those awkward years of exploration, finding yourself, experimentation with love and sex and trying to 'work out' who you might become.. It also permeates a sense of isolation and missed opportunities for the young Aciman

Beautifully written, comical in parts, fall of angst and love and ultimately with a view into a displaced family who find themselves in an unfamiliar city in an unfamiliar country and culture. The quest to find the love for his time in Rome would appear to have been a struggle for Aciman - did his writing enable a cathartic renaissance of hidden love for his time there to be uncovered? He questions this -This book would acknowledge that he did..

Although autobiographical ,this could easily be read as a novel of a young man who finds himself living briefly in 1960's Rome and the impact on him and his family