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jessicajessica101's review against another edition
4.0
Un bon livre, assez lent, et c'est là qu'on retrouve l'écriture de Benjamin Alire Saenz, je pense sincèrement que ses livres ne sont pas fait pour être dévorés d'une traite, ils sont fait pour être lu lentement. Les personnages évoluent doucement, mais ils évoluent, on ne s'en rend pas forcément compte en lisant, mais une fois terminé le livre, on peut voir le changement.
Et je pense que c'est définitivement une force de cet auteur, il nous fait découvrir des personnes terriblement humains et attachant, des personnes jeunes qui se cherchent, et qu'on se suivre tout au long de leur quête pour découvrir qui ils sont, et je trouve ça vraiment magnifique! Chapeau à l'auteur et à son écriture incroyable, vraie !
Et je pense que c'est définitivement une force de cet auteur, il nous fait découvrir des personnes terriblement humains et attachant, des personnes jeunes qui se cherchent, et qu'on se suivre tout au long de leur quête pour découvrir qui ils sont, et je trouve ça vraiment magnifique! Chapeau à l'auteur et à son écriture incroyable, vraie !
dorisxu's review against another edition
5.0
so u know the balloon popping/not popping tiktoks?? that’s exactly how this book made me feel
rachcannoli's review against another edition
4.0
Ramiro Lopez and Jake Upthegrove are the same age and attend school in adjacent buildings, but other than that, they don’t have much in common. Except they both think almost everything that goes wrong in their lives stems from their absent fathers. We see their point of views laid out in tandem until they develop a cautious friendship finding a true kinship in the other.
Saenz very much has a style, but god do I love it. He always writes these high school boys with such a wealth of emotional intelligence, curiosity, and empathy, it's genuinely so beautiful. I just adore the way he writes these characters and the way their minds work, always believable as teenagers and yet wise beyond their years. It is very hard to compare this to his magnum opus of Ari and Dante, a very similar story of adolescent friendship, but this is a much older story dealing with the absence of biological parents and the pros and cons of diverging class dynamics. I do wish the boys' stories converged quicker and we got to see more of their blossoming friendship, but it was really sweet to see their parallel stories play out and how one may be envious of the other, there's always something deeper beneath the surface.
I wasn't the biggest fan of the structure of this novel, the main reason it's not a five like his other books. We're given dual perspectives, but instead of simply titling them Jake or Ram, we're given
'Me' with a subtitle of their name or 'Him/Her' about relatives or friends, etc. It made it needlessly confusing and didn't really add anything. I love the stream of conscious style, it's so easily digestible and works really well for depicting the scattered thoughts of a teenage boy, but I do think the structure could've been tightened up a bit and didn't need to be broken up by parts as they didn't really add anything to the flow other than the slight growth of the main boys' relationship. I did love the topics discussed here as well. The differing family dynamics and how class and loss of parents can affect kids. I very much enjoyed watching the boys grow in their sense of self, how they viewed themselves as well as the people around them. And while I wish there was more of it, there was really lovely moments of the end with their little found family they were beginning to form with their friends group.
Overall, it's very clear this is written from the same man who later crated Ari and Dante, just as beautiful and impactful, just not as clean and powerful as his later works. I still very much loved these characters and really enjoyed their story, I'd genuinely read Saenz's grocery lists at this point, I just adore the way his mind thinks. It takes a bit to get into the style of this one, but once you're in it's impossible not to be endeared to these beautiful boys and their sad, yet hopeful stories.
SPOILERS FROM HERE ON
The other thing that really grated me, going off of the stream of consciousness style this book very much read like these boys' thoughts, and with Jake especially it could get annoying with some of his phrases. He'd say 'destroyed' or 'can you dig it?' so often to the point that I'd skip over it sometimes because it became too much. I don't mind throwing in these kind of catch phrases because teens do latch on to sayings and pepper it in, but when 90% of this book is their internal monologues it can be really annoying how often they say it. Ram's thing was 'effin', but seeing as it was more of a word than a phrase, it annoyed me less. Other than that, I really loved these boys.
Ram reads very similar to Ari so I fell in love with him pretty much immediately. He's just a surprisingly sensitive, compassionate boy who feels things much deeper than he would seem coming from someone so outwardly chill. I adored his relationship with his mother and Tia Lisa and it broke my heart to watch him lose his brother. It's so sad that Tito just had so much hate in his heart despite having such a wonderful family and no matter what Ram loved him and refused to say he hated him. I don't know what happens to people to make them so angry or turn down horrible paths of addiction, but it was just so sad to watch their family suffer with losing Tito, even if he wasn't that great of a person before the end, they still loved him. It was really sweet to watch him eventually let Alejandra in and I adored him recognizing that he was going to be best friends with her forever despite how much she challenged him. I like the subversion of Ram not ending up with her too, but her still being such a presence in his life. At first I kind of hoped they would get together, but I really liked her ending up with Jake better.
Jake has much more upper middle class problems, but also the sadder home life in my opinion. His relationship with his mom is so hard to watch. Sure he's a smartass calling her Sally (which isn't even her name) and constantly fighting her, yet at the same time oftentimes he's in the right and challenges her when she acts like an asshole. She's so horrible to him, to the point of slapping the shit out of him after she finds out about her shitty husband, Jake's step-father David, having an affair. Then she believes that asshole that it was all a lie and decides to stay with him. It's fascinating to me that Jake choses not to tell her, but I honestly respect his decision knowing she'll do whatever she wants anyway and this way she can choose to live in denial and will hopefully result in less blowback against him. I can't imagine how this doesn't slip out at some point with them later, but hopefully by then Jake will have moved out and is spared from her hypocrisy.
I adore that Jake immediately wanted to befriend Ram despite barely knowing him and immediately knew he was real, it was so cute. Especially when all of their interactions from Ram's POV, he felt Jake looked like such a cocky asshole and he's really not entirely wrong about it. Like I said above, I really wish these two stumbled across each other sooner because I would've loved to see more of their friendship. But I loved how easily they could slot into one another's lives like they were always there. I also adored how immediately Jake was entranced by Alejandra and how every thing she did, even being pushy or bossy, just made him so infatuated with her because he didn't know any girl as smart, sure of herself, or loving. It was honestly as sad as it was sweet that he'd never had someone feel about him that way before, like how he almost cried just by her making him a birthday cake or her grandma smooshing his cheeks, ugh. Also just the amount that these sweet boys cried, I just want everyone to wear their emotions on their sleeves like the men in Saenz's books, it makes my heart swell I just adore them.
It's interesting to see how both of the shitty absent fathers are portrayed as well. Jake's father is far more present, but still an unreliable POS. He's in contact with his mother, but in some ways it's hard to say if that's worse because he guilts Jake when he doesn't want to be around him or uninviting him to his birthday party, and yet only does this through his mom, never once reaching out to Jake himself despite having years and easy opportunities to do so. Ram's father just straight up left when Ram was barely 3, moved across the country and never even bothered reaching out, to the point that Ram doesn't even know his name. Knowing so little about him, he just feels like there's a huge part of him missing. Yet with Tito dying and his mom finally reaching out, the dad straight up doesn't even bother to come see them and doesn't even want to speak to Ram. It's so heartbreaking, but I'm glad it gives Ram the opportunity to let go of him, he's not worthy of a moment of his brain power and this way he can focus on the wonderful, present family he does have. It's funny that while Jake may be richer, he's a lot lonelier before he meets Ram, whereas Ram's family may be a lower class, but are wealthy in love and support. I'm glad they find one another as well to bond in that missing figure, but can really help the other fill in those gaps with Ram missing a relationship with his brother he never truly had and Jake missing true friends.
Not as good as the other books I've read by him, which makes sense as he wrote this far earlier, but I still absolutely adored this read and these boys. I'd read anything from this man, his work just hits me right at my emotional core and makes me so gooey and emotional, though I shockingly didn't cry at this one, though I was close at several moments.
Saenz very much has a style, but god do I love it. He always writes these high school boys with such a wealth of emotional intelligence, curiosity, and empathy, it's genuinely so beautiful. I just adore the way he writes these characters and the way their minds work, always believable as teenagers and yet wise beyond their years. It is very hard to compare this to his magnum opus of Ari and Dante, a very similar story of adolescent friendship, but this is a much older story dealing with the absence of biological parents and the pros and cons of diverging class dynamics. I do wish the boys' stories converged quicker and we got to see more of their blossoming friendship, but it was really sweet to see their parallel stories play out and how one may be envious of the other, there's always something deeper beneath the surface.
I wasn't the biggest fan of the structure of this novel, the main reason it's not a five like his other books. We're given dual perspectives, but instead of simply titling them Jake or Ram, we're given
'Me' with a subtitle of their name or 'Him/Her' about relatives or friends, etc. It made it needlessly confusing and didn't really add anything. I love the stream of conscious style, it's so easily digestible and works really well for depicting the scattered thoughts of a teenage boy, but I do think the structure could've been tightened up a bit and didn't need to be broken up by parts as they didn't really add anything to the flow other than the slight growth of the main boys' relationship. I did love the topics discussed here as well. The differing family dynamics and how class and loss of parents can affect kids. I very much enjoyed watching the boys grow in their sense of self, how they viewed themselves as well as the people around them. And while I wish there was more of it, there was really lovely moments of the end with their little found family they were beginning to form with their friends group.
Overall, it's very clear this is written from the same man who later crated Ari and Dante, just as beautiful and impactful, just not as clean and powerful as his later works. I still very much loved these characters and really enjoyed their story, I'd genuinely read Saenz's grocery lists at this point, I just adore the way his mind thinks. It takes a bit to get into the style of this one, but once you're in it's impossible not to be endeared to these beautiful boys and their sad, yet hopeful stories.
SPOILERS FROM HERE ON
The other thing that really grated me, going off of the stream of consciousness style this book very much read like these boys' thoughts, and with Jake especially it could get annoying with some of his phrases. He'd say 'destroyed' or 'can you dig it?' so often to the point that I'd skip over it sometimes because it became too much. I don't mind throwing in these kind of catch phrases because teens do latch on to sayings and pepper it in, but when 90% of this book is their internal monologues it can be really annoying how often they say it. Ram's thing was 'effin', but seeing as it was more of a word than a phrase, it annoyed me less. Other than that, I really loved these boys.
Ram reads very similar to Ari so I fell in love with him pretty much immediately. He's just a surprisingly sensitive, compassionate boy who feels things much deeper than he would seem coming from someone so outwardly chill. I adored his relationship with his mother and Tia Lisa and it broke my heart to watch him lose his brother. It's so sad that Tito just had so much hate in his heart despite having such a wonderful family and no matter what Ram loved him and refused to say he hated him. I don't know what happens to people to make them so angry or turn down horrible paths of addiction, but it was just so sad to watch their family suffer with losing Tito, even if he wasn't that great of a person before the end, they still loved him. It was really sweet to watch him eventually let Alejandra in and I adored him recognizing that he was going to be best friends with her forever despite how much she challenged him. I like the subversion of Ram not ending up with her too, but her still being such a presence in his life. At first I kind of hoped they would get together, but I really liked her ending up with Jake better.
Jake has much more upper middle class problems, but also the sadder home life in my opinion. His relationship with his mom is so hard to watch. Sure he's a smartass calling her Sally (which isn't even her name) and constantly fighting her, yet at the same time oftentimes he's in the right and challenges her when she acts like an asshole. She's so horrible to him, to the point of slapping the shit out of him after she finds out about her shitty husband, Jake's step-father David, having an affair. Then she believes that asshole that it was all a lie and decides to stay with him. It's fascinating to me that Jake choses not to tell her, but I honestly respect his decision knowing she'll do whatever she wants anyway and this way she can choose to live in denial and will hopefully result in less blowback against him. I can't imagine how this doesn't slip out at some point with them later, but hopefully by then Jake will have moved out and is spared from her hypocrisy.
I adore that Jake immediately wanted to befriend Ram despite barely knowing him and immediately knew he was real, it was so cute. Especially when all of their interactions from Ram's POV, he felt Jake looked like such a cocky asshole and he's really not entirely wrong about it. Like I said above, I really wish these two stumbled across each other sooner because I would've loved to see more of their friendship. But I loved how easily they could slot into one another's lives like they were always there. I also adored how immediately Jake was entranced by Alejandra and how every thing she did, even being pushy or bossy, just made him so infatuated with her because he didn't know any girl as smart, sure of herself, or loving. It was honestly as sad as it was sweet that he'd never had someone feel about him that way before, like how he almost cried just by her making him a birthday cake or her grandma smooshing his cheeks, ugh. Also just the amount that these sweet boys cried, I just want everyone to wear their emotions on their sleeves like the men in Saenz's books, it makes my heart swell I just adore them.
It's interesting to see how both of the shitty absent fathers are portrayed as well. Jake's father is far more present, but still an unreliable POS. He's in contact with his mother, but in some ways it's hard to say if that's worse because he guilts Jake when he doesn't want to be around him or uninviting him to his birthday party, and yet only does this through his mom, never once reaching out to Jake himself despite having years and easy opportunities to do so. Ram's father just straight up left when Ram was barely 3, moved across the country and never even bothered reaching out, to the point that Ram doesn't even know his name. Knowing so little about him, he just feels like there's a huge part of him missing. Yet with Tito dying and his mom finally reaching out, the dad straight up doesn't even bother to come see them and doesn't even want to speak to Ram. It's so heartbreaking, but I'm glad it gives Ram the opportunity to let go of him, he's not worthy of a moment of his brain power and this way he can focus on the wonderful, present family he does have. It's funny that while Jake may be richer, he's a lot lonelier before he meets Ram, whereas Ram's family may be a lower class, but are wealthy in love and support. I'm glad they find one another as well to bond in that missing figure, but can really help the other fill in those gaps with Ram missing a relationship with his brother he never truly had and Jake missing true friends.
Not as good as the other books I've read by him, which makes sense as he wrote this far earlier, but I still absolutely adored this read and these boys. I'd read anything from this man, his work just hits me right at my emotional core and makes me so gooey and emotional, though I shockingly didn't cry at this one, though I was close at several moments.
jmc1808's review
emotional
funny
sad
medium-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
3.25
borrowers_bookshelf's review against another edition
4.0
This book turned out to be really beautiful and moving. It did take me a little while to get into it, since each of the narrators had really distinct tones that could be quite strange and jarring. Once I got used to that though, I really enjoyed the different ways the two main characters’ stories unfolded.
aperez23's review
emotional
reflective
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
3.5
fractaltexan's review
4.0
Mr. Saenz did it again.
To put it lightly, this book destroyed me, but in a good way. The stories of the two main characters, Ramiro and Jake, are about two boys whose admittedly faulty lives cross at a time where they both are dealing with fathers who left then, with trials that they are sure they won't get through.
As a Latino. Mr. Saenz's writing style and his use of language strikes a chord with me.
This book was a little dense at times, but some of the passages are truly beautiful works of art, some of which I added to the quotes.
I look forward to reading "The Inexplicable Logic of my Life" next. Then a re-read of "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe."
To put it lightly, this book destroyed me, but in a good way. The stories of the two main characters, Ramiro and Jake, are about two boys whose admittedly faulty lives cross at a time where they both are dealing with fathers who left then, with trials that they are sure they won't get through.
As a Latino. Mr. Saenz's writing style and his use of language strikes a chord with me.
This book was a little dense at times, but some of the passages are truly beautiful works of art, some of which I added to the quotes.
I look forward to reading "The Inexplicable Logic of my Life" next. Then a re-read of "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe."
emikrueg's review
4.0
Really more of a 3.5 but since Saenz is so cool, I'll give it a 4.
It felt way too forced to me - Ram and Jake didn't seem like 17/18 year olds living in the 1990s. Sounded more like a cross between a 13 and 20 year old in the 1950s. Saenz just tried to hard to make them seem like kids, which you know, is cool and all but when it's just shoved in your face "effen" and "dig it?" and "destroy," it's just not believable and just gets tiring.
Alejandra's and Ram's relationship also felt strange. For most of it, they just bother each other and it seems Ram just pushes her away and disregards her, but then suddenly they're bffs?
The pacing also felt kinda off - something big happened so early on but then it just kinda dragged? The main characters hardly even talked to each other. Where was the actual connection? The friendship?
Kinda also thought it was going to feature a romance between Jake and Ram, but that was my mistake.
It felt way too forced to me - Ram and Jake didn't seem like 17/18 year olds living in the 1990s. Sounded more like a cross between a 13 and 20 year old in the 1950s. Saenz just tried to hard to make them seem like kids, which you know, is cool and all but when it's just shoved in your face "effen" and "dig it?" and "destroy," it's just not believable and just gets tiring.
Alejandra's and Ram's relationship also felt strange. For most of it, they just bother each other and it seems Ram just pushes her away and disregards her, but then suddenly they're bffs?
The pacing also felt kinda off - something big happened so early on but then it just kinda dragged? The main characters hardly even talked to each other. Where was the actual connection? The friendship?
Kinda also thought it was going to feature a romance between Jake and Ram, but that was my mistake.
_duskicreads's review
4.0
"I knew there would be tears inside us all our lives. Because they just left. We weren’t even worth a good-bye. Yeah, there would always be tears inside us. Because there was an empty space inside the three of us that would always belong to the parent who had refused to love us."
Well, I was fine until that part!
Ok, this is a book I have wanted to read and have been putting off for a very long time, because the topic is something that is very personal to me. Frankly, I worried that reading this would be like picking at a scab.
But it was Benjamin in all his wondrous glory, his brilliant insight into loneliness and anger of boys growing into men and I loved it.
Well, I was fine until that part!
Ok, this is a book I have wanted to read and have been putting off for a very long time, because the topic is something that is very personal to me. Frankly, I worried that reading this would be like picking at a scab.
But it was Benjamin in all his wondrous glory, his brilliant insight into loneliness and anger of boys growing into men and I loved it.