Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A lyrical novel about family and friendship from critically acclaimed author Benjamin Alire Sáenz.

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common.

But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

I RECEIVED THIS BOOK AS A GIFT. THANKS!

My Review: First love, with another boy, when you're fifteen and angsty show more and from a Mexican-American family.

Wow, that's a lot. Like, a real, real lot.

Which, as adults, we sometimes do not take into account when dealing with teens. The thing we lose sight of most often is that teens have adult-strength emotions triggered by the same things we get triggered by but without our decades of perspective to temper our responses with. Ari's right...his Dad is suffering. His Dad is right...Ari can't understand this suffering. In fact, no one really can. Adults don't think this is as weird and awful as Ari, not yet used to the helplessness of loving others, does. All Ari knows is that his Dad's refusal to talk about his feelings feels like rejection. So Ari clams up...and doesn't see the irony of this. Perspective: missing.

Dante, being brash and bold, just...does stuff. Ari feels envious, astonished, drawn to this bigness and forcefulness. This feels so intoxicating, so overwhelmingly right, that he and Dante meet each other all the time, talk, think, and in that gloriously uniquely young man way, fall in love. They're on different pages here, too, stunningly. Dante doesn't see this love as weird or ugly...it's the 1980s! Stonewall was in the 1960s! Ari thinks it's another way he's weird. He does think Dante's weird, too, and if Dante...big, bright, beautiful Dante with his strong ideas about Chicanismo...is weird, weird must be okay. Somehow that must be true, but how?

Thus is first love born. That was my absolute favorite thing about the story. It wasn't about the zeal of the organs for each other, in Joseph Campbell's memorable and accurate formulation of sexual desire's essence; it was instead about the addictive rush of communion with the Other, the joy of discovering the Other is not only Other but gloriously beautifully Other. These boys discover, slowly and organically, that Love is the best, the only addictive drug that makes things better.

Or it can. And it does in this story. It does this, you should note, S L O W L Y. And Ari, angry teen with a huge rock on top of his mouth, needs help figuring out what it is about Dante that he is, well, Noticing. Here is where I felt the true beauty of the story comes to the fore. It is Ari's parents, these complicatedly wounded souls who are sources of difficulty for him (as all parents must be) who rip off the bandage and show him that he is in love with Dante.

And they do it, in 1980s El Paso, Texas, with kindness and acceptance. This is how we know it's fiction.

Everything about this read was a pleasure to me. It's been over a decade since the story burst on the scene. There are sequels (I haven't read those yet). This story keeps reverberating through our louding voices of hatred. I hope you and I, readers with mileage and perspective unavailable to its target audience, can help that audience find this wonderful story of honest love and acceptance offered and accepted. show less

Aristotle and Dante was one of those books which made me regret some of the 5 star ratings I had given other books. This one, for me, sets a new standard for YA, for LGBT YA and for YA M-M Romance.
The author, Benjamin Sáenz, takes on very difficult challenges: Portraying the challenges and difficulties faced by second and third generation Mexicans who and neither wholly Mexican and wholly Americanized, the challenge of portraying teenage thinking feelings of general angst and behavior; and, third, the awakening and confused sexuality of adolescent teenage boys. In this case, they have the added challenge of being gay in a very non-accepting culture.
Sáenz meets each of these challenges full on and comes out the winner. To me, the usual show more flaw in books and movies portraying children is that the kids speak lines and make observations worthy of the most wise and learned adults. Sáenz does not fall into that trap and instead, crafts a totally believable novel. show less

It took me a little bit to adjust to this book when I started, because it definitely takes place in a hyperreal teenage world.... Ari has life-changing things happen to him that don't matter later at all, and he thinks & writes in cliches, and does stupid things, and has weird relationships and weird dreams and stilted conversations, and all of those things are perfect because that's exactly how being a teenager feels.

The book's written in an easygoing, free-flowing style that's eminently readable. There's no plot, really. It's just about Ari and Dante and what they're feeling and doing and how they grow up. It's not flashy. It's simple and good.

About the end: To those who think that Ari coming out was supposed to be a big plot twist, show more or that he didn't know he was gay until his parents told him, I can see how you could read the ending in that way and be disappointed by that suddenness. But the way I saw it, Ari was thinking and feeling things that go unrecorded through the whole book, things that are revealed only through his actions and confusions... Sáenz's style, with many long stretches of dialogue uninterrupted by interpretation, feels very true to the way in which teenagers, and really all of us, must often decipher each other through our words alone. It's easier to figure out how Dante is feeling-- in most ways he's an open book. Ari, even though we experience the entire story through his perspective, is much less readable, even (or especially) to himself. Anyway, those are just my thoughts. show less

https://iwriteinbooks.wordpress.com/2018/01/27/aristotle-and-dante-discover-the-...

I have this list of books that I put off for the right time.

It’s not that I wouldn’t enjoy them on any given day; it’s just that some books are meant for moments of reflection and calm. Some are meant for traveling and adventures. Some are meant for great days and some for wallowing days.

For whatever reason, I put of Aristotle and Dante until this random moment and it turns out, it was the perfect book for a reflective, rainy weekend.

The book, itself, has a myriad of awards but I’ve found that I am not always swayed by such things. Although, a Stonewall award usually means I need to read it, I’m always slightly skeptical of the things others show more gush about.

Don’t fear, though. The critics (and everyone else) were right about this one.

Aristotle and Dante, two high-schoolers who meet by chance, are these adorably flawed and, yet, still somehow perfect teenagers with flawed but perfect parents. As the title implies, the story is far less about action and adventure (though there is some of that) and far more about coming of age, coming to grips, and, yes, at some point, someone comes out.

The beauty in the book is that it pulls no punches (sometimes literally). The idea that boys either have to be emotionless bots or the rare, empathic saints is done away with, creating a wide range of emotions for males, both teen and adults. The intricate emotional tapestry of both generations involved in the story was the thing that stole my heart, painting young adult parents as humans with lives, as opposed to overlords.

I highly recommend this book and not just because it is going to be displayed prominently on my shelf as a therapist. show less

Although I’d heard fantastic things about this book, I was nervous about whether I’d be able to relate to a book about two teenage boys. I was so silly. The characters in this book are real, so much so that knowing nothing about being a teenage boy, I’m still convinced the author captured them perfectly. In fact, I’d say the reason I cried when I finished this book was because it was so raw and real and sad but also so beautifully happy all at the same time. I never thought I’d find myself saying this, since I generally avoid emotional books, but I loved it because it gave me all of the feels. Forget whether or not you get teenage boys (and really, does anyone get teenage boys?). This is a book about two people who are brought show more to life more vividly than any other characters I’ve ever read about. It’s also by far the most invested I’ve ever been in a fictional relationship.

Everyone knows this book as a book about LGBT issues, but the boys in this book also deal with everything from choices about sex and drugs to being part of a minority. These weighty topics were covered in a way that was profoundly moving and thoughtful without ever being preachy. Seriously, I don’t usually even notice quotes in this book and every few pages, the author was saying something that captured a truth so perfectly, I had to go write it down. The writing was fantastic in other ways as well. As you might guess from my raving about the feels, the author does a great job capturing emotion. For instance, when Ari and Dante meet, the author has a description of how it feels when you meet someone and just know you’re going to be friends. He described the feeling in a way that really resonated with me – hey, I’ve been there! And his pacing was spot on. I liked the short vignettes of Ari’s life which let me get to know him bit by bit. And the staccato sentences of conversation popping back and forth between good friends was part of what brought the characters so much to life.

In short, I think the author tackles incredibly difficult issues in a moving and thought-provoking way. I think he makes great points about acceptance and responsible choices without explicitly saying anything to that effect. He perfectly describes the turmoil of being a teenager and the challenges of being human. So go hand this to a teenager. Then get a copy for yourself.

This review first published on Doing Dewey. show less

When 15-year-old Aristotle (Ari) Mendoza first meets Dante Quintana in the summer of 1987, Ari is bored, miserable, and feeling sorry for himself. Certainly, he has a few good reasons: a distant father who can’t let Vietnam go, an imprisoned brother everyone acts like doesn’t exist, and a constant feeling of shame for reasons he can’t explain. However, his relationship with the charming and effusive Dante shakes up the introverted, emotionally-stunted Ari and forces him to reexamine all the things he (thinks) he knows about himself.

This is a rare young adult book that tackles many issues that the genre lacks: Ari and Dante’s identities as Mexican-Americans, Dante’s homosexuality, and Ari’s dysfunctional (yet loving) family. show more Sáenz, however, deftly balances all of these elements to craft a story about finding yourself in a world that isn’t always so kind. Despite all of these threads, the beautiful relationship between Dante and Ari is the heart of the book, and whether they’re overcoming a brutal beating or simply having a silly conversation about the existence of birds, readers will be deeply moved by these two boys and their relationship.

“Words were different when they lived inside of you,” Ari explains at the beginning. And maybe that’s what is so important about this story: the words of two teenaged boys discovering who they are--together and apart—will live inside of you long after you finish it. Highly recommended. Grades 7 and up. show less

Aristotle and Dante are teen Mexican-American boys living in El Paso in the summer of 1987. They have challenges. Aristotle can’t swim. Dante can’t abide wearing shoes. Aristotle is as silent as his father. Dante is as talkative and friendly as his father. Neither of them have ever kissed a girl or a boy. And worst of all, they are burdened by parents that love them. It’s hard to figure out who you are or what you want to be at the best of times. Fortunately best friends help cut through all the distractions.

Both a coming of age story and a coming out story, the novel is presented from the point of view of Aristotle. He is a late child in the marriage of his parents. He has much older adult sisters and a brother in prison of whom show more no one speaks. His father, a Vietnam vet, has his own demons and nightmares about which he cannot speak. And Aristotle is very like his father. By contrast, Dante knows himself better but not always how to tell his parents about himself. He is brave in his way and extremely loyal. When bad things happen to both boys, it’s almost impossible not to root for them to overcome the obstacles in the way of their happiness.

I especially like the treatment of both sets of parents in this novel. Everyone is a complex individual and their relationships are equally complex. Of course there is melodrama, but it won’t seem excessive if you too were ever an angst-ridden teen.

Recommended. show less