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Reviews tagging 'Cursing'
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
113 reviews
eleanorshellshtrop_mybeloved's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Graphic: Car accident and Hate crime
Moderate: Death and Alcohol
Minor: Cursing
triangular_pascal's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Minor: Animal death, Death, Homophobia, Murder, Drug use, Hate crime, Medical content, Alcohol, Blood, Car accident, Cursing, War, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, and Violence
hexa's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
Graphic: Car accident, Hate crime, Homophobia, and Violence
Moderate: Death, Transphobia, Alcohol, and Cursing
Minor: Animal death, Animal cruelty, and Murder
twelve_taco's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Homophobia, War, Transphobia, and Violence
Moderate: Addiction, Cursing, and Death
Minor: Grief and Injury/Injury detail
nenya's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
I also liked reading about the Mexican-American experiences of the two (however, I as a non-Mexican am not qualified to judge about how well this was done. Since the author himself is Latino, I imagine it to be quite authentic and hopefully relatable to a certain audience), because this once again seems generally under-represented in YA fiction. I also have to admit, despite the (for me) unappealing writing and narration style, the characters - and I mean each of them, even the dog (who has my whole heart btw) most definitely have a lot depth, authenticity, show flaws as well as growth and courage. The ending (which I won’t spoil here) also seemed very fitting and I actually liked it a lot more than the rest of the book. Once again, this isn’t a bad or superficial book but it just didn’t really catch me - I think I‘d recommend this to people between the age of 14 and 16/17 (and I mean, everyone is different, so I wouldn’t exclude people older than that, but as someone who is older, it didn’t seem like quite the right book)
Graphic: Homophobia, Drug use, Dysphoria, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, and Violence
Moderate: War, Murder, Medical content, Death, and Cursing
jasmineslibraryy's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Alcohol, Cursing, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, and Car accident
Moderate: Animal death, Drug use, Medical content, Animal cruelty, Blood, Violence, and War
Minor: Outing and Deportation
booknerd_life's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
Moderate: Cursing, Transphobia, Car accident, Homophobia, and Alcohol
danny_fox's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This book low-key made me not want to read at all for quite some time, and I'll list some reasons as to why. As always, here are 3 things I liked about this book, and 3 I didn't.
What I liked:
- The way it was written is really unique. Although, I did find it annoying that every other page didn't have a page number written on it, I still found the way it was written to be interesting as well as easy to read. There is something relaxing about it. I quite liked it!
- The characters are really loveable. They felt realistic and were absolutely not bland. As someone who values characters the most when it comes to stories, it was a major plus for me to see that the characters were very nicely written. They had their flaws and they were quite relatable as well, which for a book like this is very important. And the character development was rather nicely done. I really enjoyed seeing the characters learn and change.
- I learned some stuff from this book. As I said, the characters are rather relatable at times, so I did manage to sort of see myself in these characters. Which, then, helped me realize some things about myself or people around me. Even though I may not really be the targeted audience for this book, I still found it impressive just how many times I would read a paragraph and think "man, this sure sounds familiar" as it reminded me of people I know. Definitely a major plus for that, since I feel like that's very important for a book like this.
What I didn't like:
- The writing isn't the best. Finding typos in a published book was always a big no for me. And this book had quite a couple of typos in it. Also, the dialogue was... strange at times. It felt off and not very accurate to how teens talk, in my opinion. I find dialogue to be very important, so this really made me dislike the book.
- Ari as a character could have been better written. For the first part of the book, I found him to be extremely annoying. I get that he was sad and what not, but characters like him are my least favorite type of characters. It sort of reminded me of an opposite of a Mary Sue, where it felt like he was just flaws. Katniss from Hunger Games had the same issue and I ended up dropping that book just because of how much she annoyed me. But, Ari does get his character development, so props for that. In the second half of the book, I did actually quite like him.
- The book was boring at times and rather underwhelming. As I said, this book annoyed me and bored me so much, that I stopped reading for some time just cause I didn't want to read this book. The second half is definitely more fun than the first, I will say that. And, although, this book tried to touch on a lot of important and serious topics, it felt like it never explored them enough. It was more like it just touched on them and then moved on. For a book that's all about learning to discover who you are and what not, I feel like it definitely didn't explore and talk about that concept as much as it could have.
Final thoughts:
Graphic: Car accident, Homophobia, and Hate crime
Moderate: Violence and Cursing
Minor: Transphobia, War, Alcohol, and Bullying
anxieteaandbiscuits12's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Graphic: Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Drug use, Animal cruelty, Car accident, Mental illness, Alcohol, Grief, Hate crime, Homophobia, and Violence
Moderate: Medical content, Outing, Death, Blood, Medical trauma, Murder, and Body horror
Minor: Animal death and Bullying
schivakumaran's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Animal death, Bullying, Car accident, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual violence, Death, Cursing, Drug use, Grief, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, and Hate crime