Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

i love this book

I actually hugged this book after reading it. It's just such a beautiful story. If you're looking for a character driven coming of age story, you'd probably like this. The plot isn't that heavy, and the prose can be very sparse, so you certainly have to long the characters to enjoy it. But it's nearly impossible not to love these two boys.One thing that impressed me about this story was the nuance in the relationship between Ari and Dante. There's so many subtle moments in their friendship that it wasn't until the very end of the book when I realised how things would turn out. Ari himself wasn't sure how he felt, and the reader wasn't always sure either. I've rarely seen a friendship with so much depth.

First person perspective quickly became a non-issue once I got a few chapters into this book. This is probably the best first person story I've read.All the feels. So, so many feels. This story was so profound. I felt like I was Aristotle, or Ari to his friends. He was a lonely, lonely boy, and though I had good friends--great friends growing up, I remember feeling such an aching loneliness at times. I also remember being caught in my own private wars and living inside my head, keeping so many of my thoughts to myself.Ari was a beautiful boy who was confused not only about himself, but about the entirety of his family. His father returned from the Vietnam war a shell of his former self--not that Ari would know that because he was born after his father returned from the war. It was as if whatever haunted his father was inherited by Ari. He grew up being so bothered by the fact that he didn't know his father because he wouldn't let anyone in. He grew up as practically an only child because his siblings were so much older than him. He grew up hating that his brother, who was in prison, was treated as though he didn't exist. He hated that there were so many secrets in his family, yet he didn't want to share any of his secrets either. There was so much anger and confusion roiling around inside of Ari. And it really came through in the writing. I just wanted to hug him, and I remember being him.And then Dante came into his life. Dante was such a polar opposite of Ari, but like a light in the otherwise darkness of Ari's mind. They were a strange pair, Aristotle and Dante, but they fit so perfectly together. Dante taught Ari to swim, and became Ari's first ever real friend, let alone best friend. He immersed Ari int art, and books, and a different family life than he was familiar with. Dante made Ari feel things that he didn't want to. He made Dante want to share his mind, which was something Ari just didn't do.Watching them fall in love... It was amazing and beautifully written. This was like a slice-of-life, but with a plot. I wasn't always certain they were falling in love. The author, in my opinion, keep me wondering. I figured Dante out pretty easily, but Ari, as Dante called him, was "inscrutable". Just when I thought maybe he returned Dante's feelings I was like, oh maybe not. Even when Dante was beaten badly enough to be hospitalized, and Ari found out one of the boys who had done it, he went ballistic and returned the favor to the little punk. Maybe I'm just clueless, but I certainly would destroy anyone who hurt my bestie, and I would definitely have pushed her out of the way of a moving vehicle. That's what besties do, or at least I thought so. Which is why it made sense to me when Ari continually said he hadn't done it on purpose, it had just been a reflex. Protecting people you love-no matter the manner of love--is a reflex. You don't think about it, you just do it. I honestly believed for the longest time, that Ari loved Dante as a friend. Their experimental kiss threw me off because the author tried very hard to make the romantic feelings seem one-sided...or as I said, I'm just clueless.I'm not doing very well on this review. This book has got me shooketh. It was just a beautiful story, and I loved every page of it! It was sad and funny and exciting and heartbreaking. Dude, this book made me cry. Not full-on ugly cry, but I got misty and that's a good as tears when it comes to me. This book also triggered me a bit. But it was a me-thing. I was reminded, every time Ari thought about his father, of how much I miss mine. And like with many other books on my shelves, I can't believe it took me so long to read this.

I did not like this book very much because I felt like it did a poor job of conveying the time and place of the novel's setting. I grew up in El Paso in the 1970s and 80s. It was a magical place in many ways, almost none of that comes across in the book. How could the author miss describing what the mountains look like at sunset, the fury of a summer thunderstorm, the sights and smells of the desert? And for gods sake, the food??? Only mentioned in passing. The author also glossed over the challenges of being LGBT in the community during this era. Kids who were suspected of being anything but straight were routinely bullied and as a result LGBT youth were heavily closeted. The challenges that would have been faced by the main characters were grossly under represented. That said, Dante and Ari are compelling characters and I did enjoy spending time with them. But this book could have been so much more.

I read this for the #ReadProud challenge, Week 3.This was a contemporary gay YA novel featuring Mexican-American teenage boys. It was a very fast read, with many many very short chapters - I have a weakness for short chapters, so I liked this a lot.It had wonderful characterization, and angsty teens who came across as actual angsty teens and not some sort of novelistic cliché. I especially loved that (minor spoiler at the end*) - I had that experience (with being trans) where other people knew before I did, and it is not something I see in fiction a lot. I also liked that the parents were well-rounded people and characters in their own right.I also really liked the cover and the fact that 1. there was calligraphy on the cover 2. the calligrapher was credited (Sarah Jane Coleman).But there was one part where I did feel that the book kicked me in the jaw, and not in a good sense. This is a major spoiler, and it is about anti-trans hate crimes:(spoilers from here onward)The crime that the protagonist's older brother is jailed for is revealed toward the end as.... he killed a trans woman ("transvestite" - sic) sex worker in what seemed to have been a "trans panic" episode. Now. It is made amply clear throughout the book that the brother committed a real crime, so I was glad that it was revealed to be a real crime and he wasn't innocent. BUT. The fact that a lot of the plot involves the family coming to terms with his being in prison, AND the fact that out of ALL possible crimes, the author had to choose this one, really made me feel uncomfortable. I will also probably not pick up the upcoming sequel, because I really don't want to see more 'coming to terms with' with that. This was just one paragraph in the book, but it really soured me on it. Without this paragraph, it would have been an easy five stars... but this changed the interpretation of an entire plotline, and in a way that felt gratuitious to me, especially seeing as this was the only time trans people appeared in the novel.and the minor spoiler from above:* - one of the characters had to be cluebatted about being gayMy usual disclaimer about where I got this book: I bought this one with my own money.