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A review by colleenmarie_
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
4.0
I mulled over this one for a little bit to try and gather all of my thoughts. I'm always when it comes to well-reviewed content, and everyone I know absolutely raved about this book, saying it changed their lives and described feelings they had in ways they never could and how this book was sent from God himself basically. I was absolutely terrified that reading those reviews had set my expectations too high and I would inevitably be let down.
I finished the book about a week ago and I still can't decide if I was let down or not. It was certainly a fantastic book, though it took me a long while to see that. The first 2/3 of it, to me at least, read like a journal. Besides one or two events, the book was just the detailing of a fairly average high school boy's life. There was family drama and friend drama and girl drama, but nothing in it stood out to me as the awe-inspiring story that my friends adored. By the end of the book, I could kinda see where everyone was coming from, but it just didn't have the same effect on me. As a straight, white girl who hasn't dealt with nearly any of the things Ari and Dante do, it was just harder for me to relate I guess. It was fascinating to me to read from Ari's point of view about the things he was going through, and hopefully it can help me to better relate to people and understand them, but for me it did not have the same ground-breaking result.
I'd absolutely still recommend this book. It was a fairly quick read and definitely an interesting story, just try not to go into it with many expectations.
I finished the book about a week ago and I still can't decide if I was let down or not. It was certainly a fantastic book, though it took me a long while to see that. The first 2/3 of it, to me at least, read like a journal. Besides one or two events, the book was just the detailing of a fairly average high school boy's life. There was family drama and friend drama and girl drama, but nothing in it stood out to me as the awe-inspiring story that my friends adored. By the end of the book, I could kinda see where everyone was coming from, but it just didn't have the same effect on me. As a straight, white girl who hasn't dealt with nearly any of the things Ari and Dante do, it was just harder for me to relate I guess. It was fascinating to me to read from Ari's point of view about the things he was going through, and hopefully it can help me to better relate to people and understand them, but for me it did not have the same ground-breaking result.
I'd absolutely still recommend this book. It was a fairly quick read and definitely an interesting story, just try not to go into it with many expectations.