Review: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

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Aristotle, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjamin Alire Saenz, Book, Dante, Fiction, Recenzie, Review, Secrets, Yorum

Title: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe Author: Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Genre: YA Fiction
Series/Stand-alone: Stand-alone
Page numbers: 359

PLOT SYNOPSIS:

A lyrical novel about family and friendship from critically acclaimed author Benjamin Alire Sáenz.
Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

MY REVIEW:
I started this book mostly because I loved the cover and I have heard many great things about the book. I was expecting to read something else, but this doesn’t mean that the book was bad.

This is a friendship, love and coming of age story of two boys who discover that sometimes simple can be beautiful too. The narrator, Aristotle “Ari”, is a high school boy living in El Paso, Texas and the story took place in 1987.

Ari is a loner who never had a real friend until Dante. They meet, become fast friends, deal with some problems along their way and then realize that they are more important to each other then they initially thought. As many teenagers they don’t like themselves and don’t feel comfortable in their own skin or their own families. In their path of finding their identity, they don’t just dicover who they are, but they start understanding their parents better. These characters are real and honest and sweet and hopeful.

There was no parental conflict over sexuality, which I found a little odd, I mean which parent doesn’t first argue about this things. I felt like the ending was rushed, and there were too many secondary story lines just left there hanging to feel complete (like the part with Aunt Ophelia).

Overall, the writing was lyrical, although it doesn’t come with anything new, the book is quite philosophical and really focuses on characters thinking about rather than doing things.