Run Away with Me
by Brian Selznick
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From #1 New York Times bestselling author/illustrator Brian Selznick, a profoundly romantic YA novel about two boys finding each other and falling in love over one summer in Rome.
"I'm going to call you Danny. What are you going to name me?"
"Angelo."
Danny is spending his sixteenth summer in Rome. As his mother spends the day at work in a mysterious museum, he wanders the ancient sites and streets. Soon after his arrival, he encounters a shadow... who becomes a voice... who becomes a boy his age. Angelo.
Soon Danny and Angelo are spending as much time as they can together, piecing together stories of the city while only gradually letting their own histories be shared. Attraction leads to affection, and affection leads to both an intimate closeness and a profound fear of what happens next. Danny has never really had a home, or known the love of another boy. Angelo seems to have more experience... but he also has secrets just out of Danny's reach.
Run Away With Me is a stunning creation, weaving words and illustration to tell the story of a transformative love over the course of one Roman summer.
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Book Details
ISBN:
9781339035529
EAN:
9781339035529
Binding:
Hardcover
Pages:
320
Authors:
Brian Selznick
Publisher:
Scholastic Press
Well written. Unique and universal. Share this with a friend who will appreciate this wonderful story and storytelling. I was continually surprised
Run Away with Me is one of those books that will stick with you long after you finish it. You may not remember all the details or everything that happen, but you'll remember the feeling you had while reading it.It was a sweet, thoughtful, engaging read, that definitely left me wanting more.
I absolutely loved this book. It is set in a time when I was about the same age as the boys in the story, and what a story it is. So much detail, but none of it is filler. It makes me want to visit Rome, and see the places Danny and Angelo went to.
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟/5 (bonus)I took a few months to read this book because it's a story of such beauty that whenever I picked it up, I would only read a few pages or a chapter, and then feel the need to put it down so that I could savor it for longer.It's a story of love in Rome, love in different eras, in different centuries. But love that endures in the face of the greatest villain we all face: time. We go on a journey through the streets and past the monuments and the combination of the descriptions and the gorgeous illustrations will transport you into every scene.There is a beauty of the things we cherish and savor because we know they will end. That is the theme of this story, and how I recommend reading it. Take your time, dive in, stay a while, and enjoy the beauty of the journey. Thank you to Brian for such a beautifully woven tale.Love is love. Love is beautiful. Love connects us all.
‘I was sixteen when we found each other, shy and lonely and completely unprepared for what was to come…’Rome, 1986. Two teenage boys meet one sultry summer in the Eternal City and immediately forge a connection. We come to know them only by the pseudonyms they give each other—‘Danny’ and ‘Angelo’. Danny is besotted with the beautiful, mysterious Angelo, and as the summer progresses, he finds himself falling in love with his newfound friend who seems to know all of Rome’s hidden secrets and layered history—even if Angelo seems to be hiding some secret of his own from Danny. And hanging over them both is the impending end to their summer idyll, when Danny will have to return to America, perhaps never to see Angelo again…“Run Away with Me” is a sweet and simple story about the intensity of first love and its transformative power. This is also a book about queer desire and queer erasure—and In some ways, the novel is an attempt to bear witness and reclaim gay lives and gay love from the shadows of history. Selznick’s incredible artwork comprises my favourite part of the book, adding depth and mood to the unfolding tale through gorgeous black-and-white illustrations. (In fact, my only quibble is that I wish there’d been more drawings interspersed with the narrative, especially for the tender moments the boys share at the grave of John Keats or during their day at the beach in Ostia or even their surreptitious visit to the Cinecitta studio lot.)Ultimately, this is a novel engulfed in nostalgia—for who we were when it was still possible to derive more pleasure from relatively simpler dreams, and perhaps for what it felt like when cynicism seemed no match for the steady drumbeat of hope. Our lives and perspectives may have changed since then, but it’s oddly comforting and poignant to look back now.This would have been a solid 3.5 stars, but the artwork elevates it to 4.
