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4.33 AVERAGE
4.33 AVERAGE
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“Do all boys feel alone?”
This book left me utterly speechless. But I will try my best to form some coherent thoughts.
This book is about discovering who you are and growing up along the way. It’s about inner battles and how to fight them. It’s about friendship, and love, and heartbreak, and finding yourself within someone else. And this book made me feel like someone was pulling at my heartstrings to make me cry in a way like I’ve never cried before.
The story begins following Aristotle, a teen with just about no friends, who meets Dante, where they develop this relationship that leads Aristotle to throw himself in front of a car to protect Dante. But Dante moves away and Ari doesn’t respond to his letters and they lose that beautiful friendship they had. Once Dante comes back, the relationship isn’t the same, but it develops slowly again, not worse, but different. Stronger. After Dante ends up in the hospital from getting beat up by some boys because they found him kissing a boy, Aristotle finds one of these boys and beats him up, almost in a daze. He says he didn’t know why he did it. He and everyone around him know that Dante is in love with him. He denies being in love back. Once Dante gets better, they drive out in the desert as they often do and talk and Ari finally confesses what feels, ending on a perfect note.
I loved the ending so much that I didn’t want to ruin it for myself and I refused to read Aristotle and Dante Dive Into The Waters Of The World for months (though I did a couple months later and still loved it).
This book was beautiful and the most heartwrenching thing I’ve ever read.
The boy who jumped in front of a car out of “just habit”to save Dante, beats up a boy who hurt Dante, continuously thinks to himself that Dante is beautiful, seems a little too curious about who Dante is kissing! Still denies that he’s in love. His parents literally have to stage an intervention to tell him that he’s in love. They don’t understand how he can sit there and not go after who he loves.
Aristotle is scared. It’s the 80s and he’s a gay boy who is in love with his best friend. But he realizes that he may be scared, but he’s not ashamed.
“How could I have ever been ashamed of loving Dante Quintana?”
This book left me utterly speechless. But I will try my best to form some coherent thoughts.
This book is about discovering who you are and growing up along the way. It’s about inner battles and how to fight them. It’s about friendship, and love, and heartbreak, and finding yourself within someone else. And this book made me feel like someone was pulling at my heartstrings to make me cry in a way like I’ve never cried before.
The story begins following Aristotle, a teen with just about no friends, who meets Dante, where they develop this relationship that leads Aristotle to throw himself in front of a car to protect Dante. But Dante moves away and Ari doesn’t respond to his letters and they lose that beautiful friendship they had. Once Dante comes back, the relationship isn’t the same, but it develops slowly again, not worse, but different. Stronger. After Dante ends up in the hospital from getting beat up by some boys because they found him kissing a boy, Aristotle finds one of these boys and beats him up, almost in a daze. He says he didn’t know why he did it. He and everyone around him know that Dante is in love with him. He denies being in love back. Once Dante gets better, they drive out in the desert as they often do and talk and Ari finally confesses what feels, ending on a perfect note.
I loved the ending so much that I didn’t want to ruin it for myself and I refused to read Aristotle and Dante Dive Into The Waters Of The World for months (though I did a couple months later and still loved it).
This book was beautiful and the most heartwrenching thing I’ve ever read.
The boy who jumped in front of a car out of “just habit”to save Dante, beats up a boy who hurt Dante, continuously thinks to himself that Dante is beautiful, seems a little too curious about who Dante is kissing! Still denies that he’s in love. His parents literally have to stage an intervention to tell him that he’s in love. They don’t understand how he can sit there and not go after who he loves.
Aristotle is scared. It’s the 80s and he’s a gay boy who is in love with his best friend. But he realizes that he may be scared, but he’s not ashamed.
“How could I have ever been ashamed of loving Dante Quintana?”
This book got me out of a reading slump and I fucking love short chapters so I’d say if you’re also a fan of short chapters give it a go.
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reread. read this during my teenage years and it made me who i am Today
It took me a while to get absorbed in this book. Aristotle, who is the first person narrator, isn't very willing to let you in nor is he willing to admit stuff to himself.
But this is a fantastic growing-up tale about how it takes time to go from the obliviousness of childhood (and the willingness to accept the embargoes of the adults) to the self-awareness and the need to know of being a young adult.
The characterizations are commendable and it's not often that you find so well-rounded adult characters in a young adult novel. Aristotle's and Dante's parents might be secondary to them but they are very believable characters with a ton of heart.
But this is a fantastic growing-up tale about how it takes time to go from the obliviousness of childhood (and the willingness to accept the embargoes of the adults) to the self-awareness and the need to know of being a young adult.
The characterizations are commendable and it's not often that you find so well-rounded adult characters in a young adult novel. Aristotle's and Dante's parents might be secondary to them but they are very believable characters with a ton of heart.
I'd give this book six stars if I could. This novel is everything I aspire to do as a writer – masterful use of show-don't-tell, tender yet filled with tension and angst, felt both slow burning and tight paced at the same time. I am in love with every single character in it, from Dante and Ari to their parents, and even the background characters like Aunt Ophelia and Daniel were adeptly executed.
The book is an excellent entry in the coming of age genre. Ari has to discover what his bottled up anger, his habit to keep things inside, his true feelings about Dante, and many other things as the titular "secrets of the universe". And it is done in a way that is truly accessible to teenagers, with language that cannot be any simpler, and yet conveys so much. I think I, as a grown man, even learnt a lot more about psychology and what it means to be an adult just from reading this book.
Another important aspect it'd be amiss not to mention is the poetic, lyrical quality of the writing. I've heard that Benjamin Alire Sáens is a poet too, and it shows. Ari described himself as someone who stumbled upon his words, and he does, yet the writing remains somehow poetic due to his astute observation of the "universe", the people around him, his feelings and even the El Paso deserts. How he loves the serene beauty of the deserts, the summer stars above and the flash rains that come and go like young love. Simply delightful.
Some friends told me this book is a nice, pleasant read. It is nice and pleasant, but it's definitely not in the way you'd think. It's not the type you could read while sipping champagne on a sunny beach, watching people play with their dogs. I sobbed a lot during some sections not because it was too sad, but because I could relate so much with Ari and Dante. And it truly healed me, in ways I can't explain.
The book is an excellent entry in the coming of age genre. Ari has to discover what his bottled up anger, his habit to keep things inside, his true feelings about Dante, and many other things as the titular "secrets of the universe". And it is done in a way that is truly accessible to teenagers, with language that cannot be any simpler, and yet conveys so much. I think I, as a grown man, even learnt a lot more about psychology and what it means to be an adult just from reading this book.
Another important aspect it'd be amiss not to mention is the poetic, lyrical quality of the writing. I've heard that Benjamin Alire Sáens is a poet too, and it shows. Ari described himself as someone who stumbled upon his words, and he does, yet the writing remains somehow poetic due to his astute observation of the "universe", the people around him, his feelings and even the El Paso deserts. How he loves the serene beauty of the deserts, the summer stars above and the flash rains that come and go like young love. Simply delightful.
Some friends told me this book is a nice, pleasant read. It is nice and pleasant, but it's definitely not in the way you'd think. It's not the type you could read while sipping champagne on a sunny beach, watching people play with their dogs. I sobbed a lot during some sections not because it was too sad, but because I could relate so much with Ari and Dante. And it truly healed me, in ways I can't explain.