Call Me By Your Name is a novel within the romance genre, in which the central conflict and motivator of the plot is love. Call Me By Your Name both uses some romance genre tropes while subverting other elements. In the romance genre, narratives focus on one character as the central protagonist as they navigate the joys and turbulences of romantic relationships. In this novel, Elio is the hero whose perspective informs the reader’s understanding of romance. The conflict of the novel is driven by conflicts of romance: whether Oliver likes Elio in return, whether their lovemaking will change their relationship, and whether their love can stand the test of time.

Notably, in this love story, Elio and Oliver are not under any impression that they will stay together. They have a love that is doomed from the start. But this is where Aciman subverts the tropes of the romance genre. Rather than view a love that has been had and lost as a failure or a tragedy, Aciman depicts Oliver and Elio’s summer of love as deeply formative and consequential.