--- product_id: 200531328 title: "Lie With Me: A Novel" price: "₱2242" currency: PHP in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.ph/products/200531328-lie-with-me-a-novel store_origin: PH region: Philippines --- # Lie With Me: A Novel **Price:** ₱2242 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Lie With Me: A Novel - **How much does it cost?** ₱2242 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.ph](https://www.desertcart.ph/products/200531328-lie-with-me-a-novel) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description “I remember the movement of his hips pressing against the pinball machine. This one sentence had me in its grip until the end. Two young men find each other, always fearing that life itself might be the villain standing in their way. A stunning and heart-gripping tale.” —André Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice The critically acclaimed, internationally beloved novel by Philippe Besson—“this year’s Call Me By Your Name ” ( Vulture ) with raves in The New York Times , The New Yorker , The Wall Street Journal , NPR, Vanity Fair , Vogue , O, The Oprah Magazine , and Out —about an affair between two teenage boys in 1984 France, translated with subtle beauty and haunting lyricism by the iconic and internationally acclaimed actress and writer Molly Ringwald. In this “sexy, pure, and radiant story” ( Out ), Philippe chances upon a young man outside a hotel in Bordeaux who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back at the relationship he’s never forgotten, a hidden affair with a boy named Thomas during their last year of high school. Thomas is the son of a farmer; Philippe the son of a school principal. At school, they don’t acknowledge each other. But they steal time to meet in secret, carrying on a passionate, world-altering affair. Despite the intensity of their attraction, from the beginning Thomas knows how it will end: “Because you will leave and we will stay,” he says. Philippe becomes a writer and travels the world, though as this “tender, sensuous novel” ( The New York Times Book Review ) shows, he never lets go of the relationship that shaped him, and every story he’s ever told. “Beautifully translated by Ringwald” (NPR), this is “Philippe Besson’s book of a lifetime...an elegiac tale of first, hidden love” ( The New Yorker ). Review: Moved up to be my favorite book! Read it twice back to back! - Amazing love story - the author does such a great job with all the parallel meanings and metaphors. He gives you not only a fantastic love story, but so much to think about. When I read it immediately again, I saw so much more! It's a book that paid for itself TWICE! You really shouldn't miss this one. Review: Very well told, very French story but too short, too many coincidences, and an unoriginal plot - In November 2021, the core members of the book discussion group at The LGBT Center in NYC had a great two-hour discussion about this "novel." We were pretty united in our belief that this is a well told story and a terrific read. The reason it didn't get five stars is because it is too short, the coincidences too convenient, and the plot unoriginal. Many of us are suckers for a romantic story and "Lie With Me" offers plenty of meaty emotion, although told with a cool and slightly distant tone. The basic coming-out story is exceptionally well ordered and affecting. It seems very cinematic, from the opening prologue before the major flashback to the lovely scenes between the secret lovers. The two meetings between the narrator Philippe and Thomas' son Lucas later in the novel are full of poignant possibilities. On first reading, the novel seems hopefully romantic in a nostalgic way but on careful re-reading, it's easy to identify with the hidden, secret nature of Philippe's and Thomas' doomed affair. The whole novel is very French: grave rather than merely sincere; with many examples of uninteresting and unnecessary philosophizing, much of which is appropriate for a teenager; and completely aware and engaging with the negative aspects of the romantic situation. We were also vaguely interested in the LA, porn star life that the narrator alludes to. The narrator seems to have a rich, full life in many ways. A serious question arises: Is this a fake memoir, perhaps an "aspirational memoir," as Derek referred to it? The narrator is also named Philippe and the novel is dedicated to Thomas Andrieu (1966-2016). The narrator refers to his actual other novels. Besson also says "I know how lies need to be cloaked" as he lies to his mother. Maybe Philippe (in the novel) is an unreliable narrator who depends on us to join him in creating his lies. Frank pointed out the conclusion of 2019 The Guardian review by Tessa Hadley: -- We don’t feel enough of Thomas’s separate reality. When for once, after lovemaking, Thomas is actually talking and telling Philippe about his life, on the page Philippe repeatedly interrupts him, intruding fragments from his own experience as if he can’t bear not to be the centre of his own novel’s attention for even a moment. I once picked grapes too! I too learned how to milk a cow! Oh, you live there – that’s where my grandmother died! The narrator spends too much time backing into his own limelight, and in the end the whole tragic story seems narrated so as to validate and enhance Philippe’s famous-writer persona. Thomas may have been the unattainable love-object, inarticulate and desirable and other, yet everything he did turns out to have been because of Philippe, or addressed to Philippe. Well, maybe it happened like that. "Lie With Me" is full of Proustian echoes. It’s worth remembering that in Proust’s novel Albertine can’t belong to anyone, no matter how hard they try to possess her: not to the character Marcel, nor to Marcel the writer. -- I'd also like to point out that in the novel, Philippe checks out the Proust "Remembrance of Things Past" from the high school library, another Proustian echo. The English title "Lie With Me" (versus the French title "Stop With Your Lies") fits very nicely with this idea of both the author and the reader joining to create this fake memoir. Compared to other novels we've read, "Lie With Me" also echoed the affair in "Call Me by Your Name" by André Aciman as well as the small-town French homophobia and violence of "The End of Eddy" by Édouard Louis. In some ways, it also reminded me of the two gay men in "Mysterious Skin" by Scott Heim, who take very different approaches to their gayness. We all rejected Elle magazine's calling of the novel "a French Brokeback Mountain." If you continue to question my idea that the plot is unoriginal, I can point out two movies in the same vein. Steve K. pointed out that the movie "Summer of 85" ("Été 85") is a 2020 French-Belgian drama film written and directed by gay director François Ozon, partly based upon the 1982 novel "Dance on My Grave" by Aidan Chambers is a very similar French high-school story. "Summer of 85" is available on desertcart Prime Video. Lloyd pointed out that the 2016 French film “Being 17” ("Quand on a 17 ans") also picks up the theme, set in the same area of France and involving high school students who live on farms. It's written and directed by gay director André Téchiné (who also directed "Wild Reeds"), and is available on desertcart Prime Video. On a personal note, I was irritated by the random and completely unnecessary paragraph breaks in the text, which got worse as I noticed them more and more. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #23,864 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #37 in LGBTQ+ Literary Fiction (Books) #350 in Coming of Age Fiction (Books) #1,318 in Literary Fiction (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 4,206 Reviews | ## Images ![Lie With Me: A Novel - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81WL-ldNuHL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Moved up to be my favorite book! Read it twice back to back! *by J***. on May 24, 2026* Amazing love story - the author does such a great job with all the parallel meanings and metaphors. He gives you not only a fantastic love story, but so much to think about. When I read it immediately again, I saw so much more! It's a book that paid for itself TWICE! You really shouldn't miss this one. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Very well told, very French story but too short, too many coincidences, and an unoriginal plot *by H***S on November 7, 2021* In November 2021, the core members of the book discussion group at The LGBT Center in NYC had a great two-hour discussion about this "novel." We were pretty united in our belief that this is a well told story and a terrific read. The reason it didn't get five stars is because it is too short, the coincidences too convenient, and the plot unoriginal. Many of us are suckers for a romantic story and "Lie With Me" offers plenty of meaty emotion, although told with a cool and slightly distant tone. The basic coming-out story is exceptionally well ordered and affecting. It seems very cinematic, from the opening prologue before the major flashback to the lovely scenes between the secret lovers. The two meetings between the narrator Philippe and Thomas' son Lucas later in the novel are full of poignant possibilities. On first reading, the novel seems hopefully romantic in a nostalgic way but on careful re-reading, it's easy to identify with the hidden, secret nature of Philippe's and Thomas' doomed affair. The whole novel is very French: grave rather than merely sincere; with many examples of uninteresting and unnecessary philosophizing, much of which is appropriate for a teenager; and completely aware and engaging with the negative aspects of the romantic situation. We were also vaguely interested in the LA, porn star life that the narrator alludes to. The narrator seems to have a rich, full life in many ways. A serious question arises: Is this a fake memoir, perhaps an "aspirational memoir," as Derek referred to it? The narrator is also named Philippe and the novel is dedicated to Thomas Andrieu (1966-2016). The narrator refers to his actual other novels. Besson also says "I know how lies need to be cloaked" as he lies to his mother. Maybe Philippe (in the novel) is an unreliable narrator who depends on us to join him in creating his lies. Frank pointed out the conclusion of 2019 The Guardian review by Tessa Hadley: -- We don’t feel enough of Thomas’s separate reality. When for once, after lovemaking, Thomas is actually talking and telling Philippe about his life, on the page Philippe repeatedly interrupts him, intruding fragments from his own experience as if he can’t bear not to be the centre of his own novel’s attention for even a moment. I once picked grapes too! I too learned how to milk a cow! Oh, you live there – that’s where my grandmother died! The narrator spends too much time backing into his own limelight, and in the end the whole tragic story seems narrated so as to validate and enhance Philippe’s famous-writer persona. Thomas may have been the unattainable love-object, inarticulate and desirable and other, yet everything he did turns out to have been because of Philippe, or addressed to Philippe. Well, maybe it happened like that. "Lie With Me" is full of Proustian echoes. It’s worth remembering that in Proust’s novel Albertine can’t belong to anyone, no matter how hard they try to possess her: not to the character Marcel, nor to Marcel the writer. -- I'd also like to point out that in the novel, Philippe checks out the Proust "Remembrance of Things Past" from the high school library, another Proustian echo. The English title "Lie With Me" (versus the French title "Stop With Your Lies") fits very nicely with this idea of both the author and the reader joining to create this fake memoir. Compared to other novels we've read, "Lie With Me" also echoed the affair in "Call Me by Your Name" by André Aciman as well as the small-town French homophobia and violence of "The End of Eddy" by Édouard Louis. In some ways, it also reminded me of the two gay men in "Mysterious Skin" by Scott Heim, who take very different approaches to their gayness. We all rejected Elle magazine's calling of the novel "a French Brokeback Mountain." If you continue to question my idea that the plot is unoriginal, I can point out two movies in the same vein. Steve K. pointed out that the movie "Summer of 85" ("Été 85") is a 2020 French-Belgian drama film written and directed by gay director François Ozon, partly based upon the 1982 novel "Dance on My Grave" by Aidan Chambers is a very similar French high-school story. "Summer of 85" is available on Amazon Prime Video. Lloyd pointed out that the 2016 French film “Being 17” ("Quand on a 17 ans") also picks up the theme, set in the same area of France and involving high school students who live on farms. It's written and directed by gay director André Téchiné (who also directed "Wild Reeds"), and is available on Amazon Prime Video. On a personal note, I was irritated by the random and completely unnecessary paragraph breaks in the text, which got worse as I noticed them more and more. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Great book *by A***H on May 22, 2026* Love this book so much and it made me cry 😢 but super high quality and thick pages ## Frequently Bought Together - Lie With Me: A Novel - Swimming in the Dark: A Novel - Giovanni's Room (Vintage International) --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.ph/products/200531328-lie-with-me-a-novel](https://www.desertcart.ph/products/200531328-lie-with-me-a-novel) --- *Product available on Desertcart Philippines* *Store origin: PH* *Last updated: 2026-06-19*