Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

I like the story a lot, and a lot of it really resonated with me. I think it could have been tightened up quite a bit, though. Especially the dialogue. The characters speak oddly a lot of the time, which took me out of the story over and over. One thing that really bugged me was they constantly say each others’ names to a wild degree. Not sure how that made it through editing.

The story itself was beautiful and emotional and powerful. I really enjoyed it.

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emotional funny 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? Yes

4.75

i loved the way this book covered teenage angst, the teenage hormones and emotions and just the experience of being a flawed teenage mexican boy trying to figure himself out and navigate the world around him. it felt real and in many ways i could see myself in ari and i deeply resonated with the way he felt about certain things. a beautiful book about boyhood and sexuality and the how being a teenager is so strange, confusing, scary, but wonderful nonetheless. however, i will say that if you’re not the type of person that likes characters that are annoying (mainly due to them being a teenager) and characters that constantly complain and basically just…….act like a hormonal teenager, this is definitely not the book for you, because there’s a LOT of teenage angst in this if that wasn’t already obvious. this may ALSO not be the book for you if you’re not a fan of simplistic language, as there’s lots of that in the book too. example:

“today i was sad. i don’t like being sad. this was a very sad day, how sad is that? so sad :(“

it almost gets annoying at times but of course this book is written in the perspective of a teen from the 80’s, i do NOT expect aristotle to start talking like shakespeare lmao, but if you’re not a huge fan of that kind of language then this book just might not be for you, and that’s ok.

side note: there is a small moment that i wanna lightly touch on that i think is definitely important. in one moment in this book there is some slight transphobia. small spoiler >>>>>

there was a scene where ari and dante are talking about ari’s brother and ari says that his brother basically committed a hate crime about a trans sex worker. aristotle also uses an outdated and triggering term to describe said trans person. i know this book is set in the 80’s, and i know the whole point is that the characters aren’t perfect because they’re teenagers, but this was a scene that was kind of unexpected so it did slightly trigger me.

just wanted to mention that for anyone planning on reading this so they know what to expect and not get triggered by it. and no, i’m not trying to “cancel” the book or the author, but this stuff IS important to mention cause some people do get triggered by that, so just a slight warning for anyone interested in reading this. but besides that, i loved this book, would def recommend (with content warnings).

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