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

emotional sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

This book disappointed me. While the first one felt natural and mostly realistic this one tried too hard to be philosophical and most of the dialogue just felt so forced and unreal. It's like the author wanted to have edgy sad boy inspirational quotes EVERY PAGE. Like sometimes people would say things that felt out of character just for the sake of having another deep quote. It was just too much. The only things I liked were the friendship of Ari with Susie & Gina and some scenes of Ari & Dante and Ari & his mother. Also it was super weird how this books just starts with Ari being horny. And that's basically the theme of the book in its first 150 pages. Like I get they're 17 yo and they're horny but you could have waited a little... Or even better you could have made their sex scenes a lot less explicit taking into account that you're a 67 yo man writing about teenager boys. It just made me uncomfortable. 
The book has its sweet moments but they just weren't enough to make the sequel feel good or necessary. 
And this book is transphobic just like the author so if you're going to buy it do it second-handed please! But I wouldn't even read it, if you want to know how it ends I'll spoil it for you:
They end up together and living in Paris and Ari's dad dies. Also Dante's brother is born and they name him Sophocles Bartholomew, no it's not a joke.

Btw, if you're going to read it (against my recommendations) and English isn't your first language, this book wasn't hard to understand at all! Spanish is my first language and I had no problem reading it. 
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