Reviews

De onverklaarbare logica van mijn leven by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

_rhea_'s review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad 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

4.5


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rachcannoli's review against another edition

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5.0

There is just something about the way that Saenz crafts his characters and writes their perspectives that just fills my heart to the brim. It’s so pure and human, in the best possible light. I wish everyone thought the way his characters do and felt even a tenth of the emotion they express. While I love Dante and Aristotle more, this book was another glimpse of family, friendship, and love in such a relatable way. You don’t have to have a Hispanic/Latin American background to fall head over heels for these characters and relate to all their struggles and growth. I adored every page of this book and highly recommend.

hayleybeale's review against another edition

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4.0

A warm and thoughtful realistic YA novel about the different shapes that families can take. See my full review here.

nicolemhewitt's review against another edition

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5.0

This review and many more can be found on my blog: Feed Your Fiction Addiction

I really enjoyed this book, and it was beautifully written, but there were a few things that kept me from absolutely adoring it. I almost wrote a bite-sized review for this one, but then I decided I just couldn’t talk about it concisely enough for that because there were a lot of points that I wanted to talk about. My feelings about this book are complicated!

What Fed My Addiction:

Gorgeous writing.
Sáenz has a way of putting emotion on paper (or, you know, digital screen) that that is utterly captivating and beautiful. If I were rating this book on writing alone, it would easily get five stars.

Characters you can’t help but love.
Because of the depth of the emotion in this book, it’s hard not to get wrapped up in the lives of these characters. It’s a very character-driven book, so it’s a very good thing that they’re people you can love, even though they’re all (well, mostly) flawed. A lot of trauma befalls Sal and his friends, so be prepared to hurt for them.

Sal’s father.
If there was ever a perfect YA parent, it’s Sal’s dad. He handles every situation with grace and love, but he still steps forward and sets boundaries. I absolutely loved him (though, if you head down to my negatives, you’ll see that I thought maybe he was a teensy bit too perfect?)

Diversity.
This book is all about the diversity. With three gay characters, and a white boy raised in a Mexican family there are plenty of diverse themes to explore. And Sáenz explores them in a thoroughly honest and thought-provoking way.

Adoption portrayed positively.
This book explores the issue of adoption and shows how family can be forged in many different ways.

Religion portrayed positively.
The book also explores religious themes in an incredibly balanced manner. Sal isn’t sure how he feels about religion, and he has people in his life in various areas of the spectrum, from his devout Catholic grandmother (who he adores) to his father who believes in God but doesn’t actively practice his religion much, to his best friend who isn’t at all sure about God. I loved that Sal’s exploration was personal and there didn’t seem to be any judgment on any side.

No romance.
There’s no romance in this book, but there is an incredibly strong male-female friendship. It was refreshing to see this!

What Left Me Hungry for More:

Lack of plot.
This book is incredibly character-driven. So character driven that there almost isn’t a plot at all. It’s basically just a book about some teenagers and how they feel when traumatic family life happens to them. For a 464 page contemporary, surprisingly little actually happens, and it took me a while to get through the book because of that. It definitely felt like it dragged in some places.

Textbook parenting?
Okay, so I said I love Sal’s dad, and I do. But in some ways he almost seems a teensy bit too perfect. Like he’s literally a parenting book come to life. At one point, Sal even protests that his dad has never tried to be his friend, even though they get along incredibly well. It didn’t seem like something realistic that a kid would say about his dad—it seemed like the parroting back of popular parenting advice. Sal’s dad responds to every situation perfectly. He never raises his voice and he always knows the right thing to say. And (this is hard to even mention because of my own privilege), there was a teensy feeling that I got that maybe the gay dad was being portrayed as too absolutely perfect to contrast with the horrendously terrible, horrible straight parents (and, wow, were they horrible) in order to make a point? There’s validity to this, since we need to see positive portrayals of gay parents, but I have to confess that there was a little part of me that felt like the depiction of absolute perfection was maybe a little too over-the-top and therefore didn’t ring true, which watered down the message a little.

Sal’s sudden fits of violence.
So, in the book Sal suddenly finds himself getting angry often and punching people (or really wanting to punch them even when he doesn’t follow through—but he does follow through several times throughout the book). He always does it in defense of someone he loves, so the sentiment is admirable, but I couldn’t help but feel like this was kind of odd. I get that Sal is confused about his life and sad about his grandmother’s illness, but it seemed odd to me. The thought goes through his head that maybe it was a case of nature vs. nurture (like maybe he gets his violent tendency from his biological father), but then when there is a chance to explore that at the end of the book, it isn’t really mentioned. And Sal’s grandmother tells Sal that it’s just him growing up, as if it’s completely natural for boys to start punching people when they’re becoming men. Um … no?

So, like I said, my feelings are complicated when it comes to this book. It’s beautifully written and there are aspects of it that I adored, but the slow pacing and the lack of plot made it hard for me to truly love. Those things, along with the other more nit-picky issues I had with the book, lowered my rating a bit. In the end, I gave it 3.5/5 stars.

***Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given and all opinions are my own.***

simplyselicia's review against another edition

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4.0

Coming from Benjamin's other work, there was something about this that was different.

I honestly really really liked this book, but I don't think it is without it's faults. I think listening to the audio book made a lot of the difference up for me. I think without the narrator's help, I might not have read it at the proper pacing. Something about the sentence structure is less poetic and more staccato compared to previous work.

I could identify a lot with the characters. I smiled and cried along with them throughout the story line. I do think that I could have found myself even more in love with them if some points reached more of a climax instead of lulling along, but it never bothered me. Something about that boiling lull made me relate to them even more since there are often many things I don't let reach the surface completely. I could get that.

I recognize that many people couldn't identify with some of the "blandness" between characters, but I just honestly never felt bored by the simplicity of some of the interactions. I think those subtleties are what make and break relationships everywhere. However, we're all different, so levels of patience with introspective rooted story-lines will be different.

Ultimately, I enjoyed it overall. I found a lot of beauty in this story.

beansbookclub's review against another edition

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4.0

this ya novel was one of the most poignant, moving, and beautiful ones i've read.

"you want me to explain this with logic? well, where was the logic to loving? ...where was the logic to cancer? where was the logic to living? i was starting to believe that the human heart had an inexplicable logic. but i was also starting to get drunk, so i wasn't trusting anything i was thinking."

"maybe it wasn't a good idea to rank the people in your life. that's not how the heart worked. the heart didn't make lists."

"i held the envelope in my hand and opened it with all the care that was in me. and there in the envelope were some dry leaves. yellow leaves. and there was a note. i started at Mirna's handwriting. 'these are the leaes that my Salvador gave me one saturday afternoon when he was five.' i knew then that that day had been just as beautiful for her as it had been for me."

thecaptain's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted 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

4.0

gwalt118's review against another edition

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3.0

Saenz's second YA novel was not quite as good as his first, "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe," but it was still a very good book. It is a fantastic coming-of-age novel for today's teenagers that explores the struggles of self-identity in a senior year of high school. It explores what it's like to have a parent who is gay, a friend who is gay, how to deal with conflict and harassment, how to handle death of a loved one, and so many more things that teenagers often face. A wonderful novel for teens to read, especially those who are struggling with something. The only caveat for this novel is that it might be long for a teenager. This is not a book for a struggling reader or a reader who gets disinterested easily. The story takes time to develop and the characters take a while to grow; however, it's certainly worth the wait and the time investment for young readers and adults.

aobenstine's review against another edition

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5.0

I just lost my grandmother a few weeks ago. This book hit me hard, but in all the right ways.

Wow wow wow.

readsbylaura's review against another edition

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4.0

At first, I wasn't so sure about this book because of how it was written. I'm not sure how to describe it, but the way Sáenz writes this book is very different from what is could be considered "normal" writing, I guess, but you get used to the writing and start to actually like it because you feel like your inside the main character's mind or like you're apart of his life.

While I was reading The Inexplicable Logic of My Life, I was slowly getting attached to the characters in his book. They are written so well that they feel so real to the point where you're pulled into their life struggles and happiness. I just felt so close to these characters that all I wanted was for them to be happy and not hurt even though their pain is what made them even better characters.

I can't really explain what this book made me feel, but honestly, the way it's written is what I liked about it a lot. It grew on me and I truly enjoyed the way it was written. It was a great coming of age book. Sáenz has done it again!

Review also posted at Little Pieces of Books