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

Reviews tagging 'Outing'

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

27 reviews

trycerabel's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring sad 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

3.75

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maedae4's review

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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

My sweet Aristotle and Dante. I want to preface by saying that no matter what happened in this book, I was bound to like it as long as these two boys are happy. Also, the timing at which I encountered this book was really special because I had a death in my family around the same time I reached the death of Ari's father. That meant that Ari often reflected feelings I was having but couldn't yet articulate until I saw them written. So the margins of the latter chapters in my copy are often dated where something resonated with me so completely that all I could say was that I too, at that moment, was living it. I'll always be grateful for this timing.

I'll also always be grateful for the true sense of hope and the true wisdom this book gave me. These are a couple of the things that, as expected, Benjamin Alire Saenz does so well. Even this relationship fraught with fear and uncertainty, even this juncture where Ari is doing things and communicating in ways that are terrifyingly new and vulnerable, even these moments that could feel miserable and scary are still overflowing with hope. Ari and Dante are happy together. Loving Dante cracks open Ari's world and connects him to other people in ways he never could have fathomed, and so everything that happens is charged with the beauty of that. Saenz can uniquely capture Ari's emergence from his shell, and the book reflects that just by how many characters join the cast of Ari's life and receive his careful attention. Even if only for a page. Ari, Saenz, and this sequel all find a lot of people who matter a lot to them, and they know that the world becomes beautiful in a different way when you unlock an ability to love and appreciate others.

I loved seeing Ari find a context for himself, moving from a feeling of marginalization to a feeling that he and those he's lost are all inevitably connected. They share a world that is his simply because he is also in it. He can feel small and insignificant--which he often does throughout the first book in a way that hurts him--but still feel a part of something greater than himself. There are painful parts of this process of contextualization: Ari is sensitive to racism, homophobia, and transphobia in ways he never was before, and he's suddenly aware that his country wants him dead. But ultimately I think he's able to understand from his father that, because we are connected, to dismiss another life is to dismiss our own. Even though I felt surprised by the discussion of racism, I think it also makes sense for Ari to gain a new sensitivity to it now that he's more aware of his own positionality and the power of his own voice, and I'm grateful for the inclusion.

As Ari's world expands, he provides more of his poignant words and his wisdom, and he's also more receptive to the wisdom others can offer him. Ari does a lot of listening in this book, and I listen with him. I listen to his mom, to his dad, to his teachers and to his new friends. They all have amazing things to say, many of which I hope to remember and think about for a long time to come.

Not everything is perfect. First of all, typos!! Come on, managing ed and copyediting! I also felt that the book was so full of love that the battles Ari frequently refers to in his journal entries didn't actually come across to me. Ari keeps writing that he's scared to love Dante and that the two of them are learning lessons together. But they don't actually have a lot of conflict (which is part of why Dante's departure at the end feels so sudden). There are things that feel sudden--Cassandra's inclusion in the book, the sisters getting more attention--and there are some things that feel possibly underdeveloped--Bernardo's inclusion and the way he just sort of vanishes afterwards, Ari's exposure to the AIDS pandemic, certain teacher relationships. But I think the book also wasn't going for plot points A to Z. It meanders, more like life does. And in the end maybe these pacing things were decisions meant to mirror the suddenness with which Ari becomes aware of the world around him.

All in all, of course I love the book. Of course I do. I will miss reading it. It made me feel whole, and I feel more connected to Ari than I feel to most protagonists. Seeing him grow and become more aware of his goodness, seeing him build a safe community, seeing him envision a future for himself--all of this made me so happy and gives me hope for myself.

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grboph's review

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emotional hopeful inspiring 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

4.5

I LOVED this book. I had read Secrets of the Universe three or four times before I found out this book existed, and the day I found out it did I drove half an hour to buy it. I am very glad I did. I think this book did a really good job of tying up some of the loose ends that were left at the end of the first book. I found the character development to be stronger and more significant in this book than it was in the first one, particularly in how Ari makes new friends and

deals with the death of his father

. I also really liked that the plot of this book was contextualized a bit more and dealt with important social issues, particularly the AIDS epidemic, homophobia, transphobia, and racism (which are as prevalent now as they were in the late 1980s when this book takes place). The only reasons I removed half a star were because I found the writing to be trying too hard to be "deep" in some places and because I don't quite know how I felt about Dante's choices towards the end of the book (they were sort of immature, and for a book where maturity and the concept of "becoming a man" is so central, I'm not sure his actions were correct or made sense). All in all, however, I really enjoyed reading this book and I am so glad I went to the lengths I did to get it. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and it made me think very deeply about life. It was everything I could have hoped for in a sequel to Secrets of the Universe. I would recommend this book to anyone who read the first book, even if they did not enjoy it very much, and I would recommend this series to anyone in the world looking for an emotional book to read.

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lisa_m's review

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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? Yes

4.5

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is one of my all time favourite books. It has stuck with me and ever since I've read it for the first time I can't stop thinking about it. When I heard that there was going to be a sequel I was incredibly excited. I adore Saenz's writing style and he always manages to make me think and feel.

This book was a long one I'm not gonna lie. 516 pages of slow paced writing are probably not for everyone but I loved it. I love the characters and the families and the friendships and relationships. It's truly beautiful.

I also cried my eyes out while reading this book. I have to say though that I'm very emotional and I had a strong connection to the characters which made it even more painful for me.

When Ari's dad died I was sobbing so much I had to take a break. Their character development was beautiful and his death so incredibly unsuspected. But that made it realistic and raw. And when Dante and Ari had a fight I cried again. When Ari talked to Dantes parents and they gave him the painting Dante drew I completely lost it again. There is so much detail and it just felt so real.

My only critic about the book was the ending. It felt very rushed in the end. The last 70 pages just felt weird and like they didn't fit in. The usually so well thought out dialogue felt like a 5 year old wrote it and the whole ending was kind of frustrating. Still I loved this book with all my heart and if 70 out if 500 pages are bad I guess that is still a good quota.

The part that I found weird was the one about that boy from school who was crying at the party and telling Ari that he's gay. It felt so strange and unnecessary. Idk I just didn't get it and the dialogue felt cheap.

I don't know who I would recommend this book to but I think everybody has to make that decision for themselves. It fit perfectly into my life and helped me because I could connect with it and think about it. If you are just expecting a cute gay romance you will for sure be disappointed by this book though. I would describe it more as philosophy and poetry than a love story. The relationship is in my opinion not even the main focus if the story. Just the two people in the relationship and their lifes, worries, fears etc.

Oh and one more thing that I found strange. The general talk about outing. At one point Ari's mum says somethung like 'she is his mom and can therefore tell anyone anything about her son if she thinks it is important.' She uses that argument to justify outing Ari to his sisters and she also says that he would never have done it on his own and that's why she had to which is just a crappy thing to say.

And when that boy from school comes out to Ari he just says he should tell his friends and not him. The boy tells him he's scared (which makes 100% sense since we know people have been beat up for that) and Ari basically pressures him into coming out by telling him he needs to be brave and then bringing his friends to him so he has to say something. Like I said earlier that whole scene just felt weird and unreal but yeah shitty behaviour still.

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kyrstin_p1989's review

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted 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

5.0

Aristotle and Dante give me hope, make me laugh, make me cry. Rarely does an author so clearly understand and intimately describe what it means to be human and more importantly, what it means to love and be loved. This book made me feel so many things. I can’t express how important this book is — for so many people.

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bbellabeee's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring 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? Yes

4.25

I beautiful end to Ari and Dante’s story. It wasn’t all happy love, it had the harsh reality that can come with it. The length was daunting compared to book one, but it’s one of those books that had a natural division between each section of pages that made reading it very easy and relaxing. Overall: gorgeous, but a one-time-read.

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drraytay's review

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Theoretically the subject matter of this book is right up my ally. It’s hard to pinpoint why this book didn’t work for me but it just didn’t and I couldn’t finish it.
It was very emotional but it still felt surface level, try hard, and repetitive. The emotions weren’t believable for me because everyone was constantly crying and gushing over each other. I kept finding myself thinking “no one speaks like this all of the time.”
It was also really difficult to pick up the tone of the conversations because there was no description of mood until the end of a conversation if at all. Dante was either suddenly enraged or laughing and every time I thought “that came out of nowhere.” Everything was just over the top.
I honestly wanted to finish this book for the sake of completeness since I read the first in the series but it felt like a struggle even though it’s a fairly quick read.
From other reviews it sounds like this book gets biphobic and transphobic. The first book was already deeply misogynistic so that’s really not surprising. Also I HATED that Ari’s mom outed him to his sisters. That was extremely out of character for her and it was glazed over as if that isn’t a massive violation of trust.

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abigail_bowling's review against another edition

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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

4.75

i cried a lot… i haven’t cried reading a book in a while.

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luluslittlelibrary's review

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emotional 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

2.0

If you enjoyed reading Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. I enjoyed the original, but the sequel ruined it for me. My main issue with this book is that the writing was just bad. Ari and Dante seemed to somewhat lose their connection once they were in a relationship. The female characters were poorly written and underdeveloped. The dialogue felt fake. Overall, none of this book seemed very realistic. There were also so many plot holes and parts that were just skipped over. And it was way too long and felt repetitive. I'm really disappointed by this book, especially because I really enjoyed the first one so much.

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megplant's review

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emotional reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

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