Okay, as a queer, trans person in their adolescent period who read this book on a whim, picked it up at a bookstore that was 20 bucks off compared to the other retail prices and because the book was blowing up on booktok, booktube, bookstagram, I picked it up, read it with nothing to expect other than knowing that the two main leads fall in love (it literally says on the cover, its not a spoiler) I. Love. This. Book.

It took me almost two weeks to finish this book because of school but in all honesty, I'm pretty sure I can sit through this book in a day or two (or three) if school was non existent. I say this because the chapters of each section of the book is short, like one page short; two page short. Sometimes it would be fully fleshed out chapters around eight to ten pages, but since the pages on average are so short, they're easy to digest and enjoy. I also think that these pages are like a movie script, they're like scenes of a movie that are all proportioned out turned into a book for readers to read and enjoy.

This book is in the perspective of Aristotle, or who prefers to be called Ari. Ari is a great narrator, but to me, he's an amazing narrator. These questions that he comes up with, the way he view the universe, they all remind me, of me. I see myself in Ari and that's literally all it took for me to love this book.

Also the coming to terms of Ari's identity and also bits and pieces of his sexuality hits so close to home, and

Dante's coming to terms too. His pain, his fears of disappointing his family that he loves to much to the point where Dante begs to God that his younger brother will turn out to be straight and not gay like him.

I cried. Because even now, in 2023, that even though things have gotten better, it still hurts, and we still do everything we can to live and survive.

I won't go into too much detail of the violence in this book, because I feel uncomfortable talking about hate crime against queer people and those sorts of things but please read the content warnings before reading this book as it is set in 1987-1988. (I however don't get the transphobia in the book, maybe it was overshadowed by the homophobic hate crimes, so I'm not sure about that.)

Another thing I would like to discuss is

what the title means: The secrets of the universe. And honestly, I think what this means is the secrets of themselves. And what I mean by secrets is learning about themselves that they didn't know existed, and write the story about themselves. I typed this in one of my journal entries (If I can find a way to publicize it, I would bc I love my journal entries) that this shows why Ari says "The problem with my life is that it was someone else's idea." because he wanted to carve out an identity that was purely from his experiences and by him and him alone; not by the bits and pieces of other people like Dante, his father, his mother, Mrs. and Mr. Quintana, so on and so forth but it's inevitable that everyone's social identity is made up of bits and pieces of the people in our life because an identity is how we see ourselves and the idea of how others see us. And I think that's a wonderful thing to see in a book like this.

It never fails to amaze me that this book was first published in 2012 and it covers so many crucial topics that we avoid covering in the current era, the writing is so poetic, and the characters are so fleshed out. I love how Mr. Benjamin (I like to use honorifics hehe) managed to give development to a majority of the characters especially Ari's dad in a 300+ page book while keeping everything nice and simple. And that twist? chef's kiss.

However what I do want more is more coverage on Ari's brother. And honestly the crime that his brother did was unforgivable, but genuinely not the type of crime I would think about because I thought that his brother did a similar thing like Ari did at the end of the book, not the other way around. (Read the book to feed thy curiosity <3) I definitely want more about that but nonetheless, this book is a solid 5 star from me.

(We don't talk about the background characters they are so not worth talking about I hate them)

That's all for my review! Thank you and happy reading! <3

Content Warnings

bookduck74's review

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective sad fast-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? It's complicated

4.75

Content Warnings

giulsfloris's review

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This book was filled with redundant and superfluous sentences, it was essentially pointless even though there are some redeeming qualities from time to time. There were a few sentences that I actually liked or felt like they were “a mood”, but overall this book just didn’t click.

Way too long. As a matter of fact, it was so long that I eventually decided to spoil the ending and find out what the hell the brother did to end up where he ended up and I was so disappointed, to be honest.

I mean ok I get that it was before the 1980s but was it really necessary to make Bernardo commit murder and kill an innocent person just because that person was transgender and Bernardo was either closeted or transphobic? He could have committed literally any other crime and the author could have found another less hurtful way to make his point and let us know that there was a lot of homophobia back in the day (as if we didn’t know already).

Ok so, I get why some people liked this book, it just isn’t for me.

Content Warnings

elliereadsthings's review against another edition

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hopeful lighthearted 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? It's complicated

5.0

A really cute story about a boy falling in love with another boy, what more could you want???

For some reason I absolutely LOVE the parents in this story, they’re amazing. I may even love them more than Dante and Ari themselves.

The start was a little slow, but I swear this book just got better and better the further in I got.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

“Dante. I really liked him. I really, really liked him.”

Content Warnings

that_bookworm_guy's review

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Maybe if I read this a few years ago I might have enjoyed it. But for me, this felt very forced.

It seemed like it was trying to be philosophical for the sake of it. The conversation between the two main characters, who are meant to be teens, felt very forced.

The whole romance thing felt very forced too, and for Ari's parents to tell him that he is in love with Dante felt very odd.

The whole dead trans trope with the misgendering felt very out of place too. Like why have that as a plot point that plays no actual role in the story. I understand if it's done well where maybe it is called out as misgendering, but it wasn't. The trans woman was referred with male pronouns, she was a sex worker, and she was killed by Ari's brother because 'he was a transvestite'. This is literally the only mention of a trans character and she was murdered. This could have very easily just not been included. I honestly don't understand it at all, or why it wasn't at least called out.

Content Warnings

goosecaboose's review

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted 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? It's complicated

5.0

This book is amazing!! I just wanted to hug the book and the characters the whole time I was reading it. It’s very wholesome and warm. Putting this book down during a reading session was basically impossible. I definitely recommend this book.

Content Warnings

siestudygirl's review

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hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

This book definitely holds impact, not just during its time of publication, but to present day. I received this book as part of a book swap, and I was stoked to dive into it! I liked how each character had their respective flaws that didn't make them unlikable. However, although I definitely picked up on the plot, I did not like some of the pacing. Nor was the writing style (consistent, short, blunt sentences) totally my speed. In fact, only when there was some kind of confession did the writing style change.
Overall, this is a good book! But some of the pacing and writing didn't really help with engagement.

Content Warnings

marla_a's review

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emotional funny inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing 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

4.75

Content Warnings

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