Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

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

39 reviews

abby_reads_books's review

emotional 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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Death, Grief, Homophobia, and Death of parent

esme_28's review

emotional inspiring lighthearted relaxing 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? No

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cursing, Racial slurs, Alcohol, and Alcoholism

quinn_k's review

challenging 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Death of parent

Minor: Alcohol and Drug use

journey2's review

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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? No

5.0

Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World picks up immediately where the first book left off. On the same magical night. Our heroes are happy and in love and have found their voices in the world but knowing what comes next is the hard part. 

These books are beautiful, the characters are intellectual, the relationships with parents and family are based on love and honesty and seeing each other as people and they are honestly so refreshing. 

The questions they ask, the things they struggle wih are real and tangible. Falling in love with another boy at the height of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and having to hide yourself for fear of persecution, I thought about these things a lot as I read them. (Arguably I read the first book in one sitting cover to cover!) 

These are gorgeous books and if you haven't read them yet I suggest you do!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Animal death, Homophobia, Terminal illness, Bullying, Grief, Alcohol, and Transphobia

Tw: homophobia, transphobia (use of an out dated t word that would have still been in use in the 80s, although this does seem to be rectified by the second book and handled with more care), violence, car accident, death, incarceration, AIDS.

xlaurareads's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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

4.5

what an incredibly beautiful, heartwarming, thoughtful sequel to the first book. it had me laughing, it had me crying, it had everything i needed of a book. an amazingly crafted story about love and everything that comes with it. the only issue i had and the reason why this isn't a 5-star read is that, sometimes, it felt a bit too dragged and long-winded. but i loved it nonetheless and would recommend it to anyone without hesitation. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Outing, Pregnancy, Death of parent, Grief, and Homophobia

Moderate: Hate crime, Transphobia, Alcohol, and Racism

chris_reads's review

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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death of parent, Grief, and Homophobia

Moderate: Alcohol, Bullying, and Racism

Minor: Terminal illness, Deadnaming, and Religious bigotry

applebutter_and_pickles's review

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Violence, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Grief, and Homophobia

Minor: Alcohol, Bullying, Deadnaming, Gun violence, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Suicide, and Religious bigotry

shayna_hadassah's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Moderate: Homophobia

Minor: Alcohol

erinlilym's review

emotional funny 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Moderate: Transphobia

Minor: Homophobia and Alcohol

btrz7's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

1.0

It's been a while since I read the first book and I'm gonna admit I didn't re-read it before coming into this, but the feelings I got as I finished each one couldn't be more different. While I remember enjoying the first book and finishing it with a sense that it was worth my time, this one was a chore from beginning to finish.
It's sappy, disjointed, goes nowhere with its weird fragmented chapters, seems to be just a lot of amateur philosophy and quotable sentences that seem over the top in context.
To be clear, the book was so boring and, in my opinion, badly written, that I had to go back and read a chapter because I had mostly glossed over in my head one of the major events if the book, if you can say it has any. Also was getting tired of all these characters introduced out of the blue just to tell Ari how much of a man he is.
Overall, too many attempts at moralising for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent and Homophobia

Moderate: Racial slurs, Murder, Alcohol, Violence, Transphobia, and Racism