Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - Aristotle and Dante Dive Into the Waters of the World

Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Aristotle and Dante Dive Into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

367 reviews

adisiki's review against another edition

4.0

Another very cute story! This one got a little too heavy-handed with the messaging and the poetic language for my taste, it just got to an unrealistic point where people don’t actually talk like that in real life. But I appreciate tackling topics like racism and homophobia in fiction, particularly young adult fiction, and the characters are so sweet and so high school. I thought it was a good sequel, maybe just a bit too long.

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stormeno's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-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

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sweetrosegirl76's review

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emotional lighthearted reflective medium-paced

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

3.75

I go back and forth with how I wanna rate this. 3.5? 4? I lean towards 4 bc I liked it, and it was really poetic and beautiful in so many parts, but then I compare to other books I've gives 4 stars too and I wouldn't say I like this more than those... Idk I'm really torn on my analysis of the book which is why I'm hiding it under the spoiler tag in goodreads lol

Some parts made me cry, esp the teacher letter. Wow. It was so beautiful. This book feels like a love letter I think that's why I rounded to a 4 on goodreads

Idk about you, but you know how you can tell a book was written during covid? 😂 after the awakening of america? Idk how to explain this; my only other example coming to mind is The Extraordinaries book 1 and 2, but I think I did read another that gave those vibes. I don't know how to explain this because it's such a weird vibe, but what I mean by this is that the we talk about race, social issues, racism in books taking place in America is such a different way pre and post 2020. I don't think it's a bad thing because these are conversations that we should be having. I can just tell when the author realizes it should have been a part of the book from jump and that they want to suddenly include this in their work bc it does feel forced or too much when i read it after the fact. I can't tell when the author themselves has changed, which is, of course, a great thing. It's just something I notice, and I noticed it here. This book is supposed to take place in 1986? 88? If it wasn't included in the first book, so it's presence is very much noticed. Again, it's not a bad thing to include, I'm purely speaking of a technical writing perspective.

There was a lot of wisdom in this book reguarding the topics I just mentioned and honestly about life too, which is why I want to give this book a little bit of a higher rating, but then when I think about the plot I'm kind of like was there one? I didn't really know the direction where this book was going VS I felt like with the first one. There was a little bit more of a journey, but at the same time there is a journey that's happening here, I guess it was just kind of harder to see? I feel so conflicted because I feel like even this is not a good or fair thing to say because Aristotle went through such a journey when it came coming out of a shell and allowing himself to be loved like there is definitely some great character development here, all because of Dante and Aristotle's love for him. That is beautiful.

There are beautiful and poetic lines, its a soft book, its a loving book, with loving characters, and loving relationships. There is so much wisdom, love, heart, and soul in this book which is why I wanna give it a 4, but then I think about just the story itself and I think about doing a 3 bc of previously mentioned points about post 2020 writing and what is the plot. The running metaphor and theme about the cartographers of the world was kind of overplayed and tired imo it was getting SLIGHTLY annoying bc it's just not how teens talk.

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eveofthestars's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful 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

5.0

I'm so sad I finished this book and yet I didn't want to put it down. I flew through this book, I read it in one weekend and throughout it I thought: "I want to read this book forever, I don't want to do anything else and above all I don't want it to end." I don't think I'll ever find books as beautiful as these, that speak to me in such a way. I could praise the writing for days — you can feel the poet in Sáenz and it's part of what makes these books so gorgeous. I'm so happy to see the journey Ari went through, with all its hardships, and the person he's becoming. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go grieve the fact that there're no more books in the series.

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