A review by nenya
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad slow-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? Yes

3.25

I must say, as a total, this book was somewhat of a disappointment. It tackled teenage confusion, angst and the journey of sexual discovery but in a - to me - not very groundbreaking way. Rather, most of the time it felt insufferably basic and like I‘d read and seen pretty much exactly that before (which is kind of the case). Furthermore, I mostly disliked the writing style because to me, it made the impression of wanting to be edgy or alternative but just ending up being boring. It also made me feel quite detached from the story (I recognize that this was done on purpose to properly show Ari’s way of thinking and well… it is first person narration after all so that is overall a good thing but in this case, it just didn’t quite work for me most of the time) However, I wouldn’t say that this is a bad book - for one I believe that my expectations were set a bit too high (after all, not every popular book is something for everyone) and I might quite simply be older than the target audience, plus I think there were some things done and represented very well. The relationships Ari and Dante have with their parents for example - they are each uniquely different but yet the same in the sense that these children experience immense parental love and a generally healthy relationship with their parents and are furthermore able to recognize this and reciprocate - which I think is very beautiful and also new to read about, since a good parent-son relationship is not very often written about in coming of age or YA pieces of fiction. It also showed parents as people with their flaws and traumas and how it is a part of growing up to stop idealizing one’s parents and instead seeing them for who they are. 
I also liked reading about the Mexican-American experiences of the two (however, I as a non-Mexican am not qualified to judge about how well this was done. Since the author himself is Latino, I imagine it to be quite authentic and hopefully relatable to a certain audience), because this once again seems generally under-represented in YA fiction. I also have to admit, despite the (for me) unappealing writing and narration style, the characters - and I mean each of them, even the dog (who has my whole heart btw) most definitely have a lot depth, authenticity, show flaws as well as growth and courage. The ending (which I won’t spoil here) also seemed very fitting and I actually liked it a lot more than the rest of the book. Once again, this isn’t a bad or superficial book but it just didn’t really catch me - I think I‘d recommend this to people between the age of 14 and 16/17 (and I mean, everyone is different, so I wouldn’t exclude people older than that, but as someone who is older, it didn’t seem like quite the right book)
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