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

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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

3.75

some books don’t need a sequel and this one might have been one of them.
don’t get me wrong, it’s a good book and i very much enjoyed the poetic and emotional writing. ari‘s thoughts were often times relatable. it was easy to follow his train of thoughts - that‘s one of the reasons why i appreciated the letters so much. 
i also liked that it adressed a lot of things that were left unsaid in the first one. 
after reading both books i was sad that we didn’t get to find out more about dante’s feelings and thoughts. i’m not sure if ari understood some of his decisions and it would’ve been nice to get to know him better.

i hate the ending.
it felt rushed in every way and honestly like the bit of drama that can be found in every romance novel. it was comforting to see dante supporting ari after his father’s death and how they were able to work through so much trouble. breaking up and getting back together right after without any communication (one of the reasons why i’m sad we don’t get to see anything from dante’s pov) felt very out of character.

the deadnaming and misgendering was painful to read and made me uncomfortable in a lot of ways.

all in all, i enjoyed their story and how ari felt in their relationship. i’m still glad i picked up the sequel even though it could’ve been kept shorter.
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