(no subject)

[skygiants]

Benjamin Alire Sáenz's Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is one of those books that I find I like better the more distance I get from it -- not that I didn't enjoy reading it, because I did, but over time I've also sort of come to appreciate the shape of it in a way I didn't necessarily when I first read it a few months ago.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is very definitely a coming-of-age story: Dante Quintana is a kid figuring out his own queerness, and Ari Mendoza, our POV character, is a kid figuring out his ability to make any kind of connections to other human beings at all. Ari doesn't have friends, and doesn't feel like he needs them particularly, but he and Dante meet at the pool and click, and it's good! It's nice! Friendship, that's a thing!

Then Ari happens to save Dante's life, and things get weird; and Dante moves away for a while, and this also makes things weird; and Dante has a huge crush on Ari, which he is pretty upfront about, thus making it less weird but also, I mean, it's hard! People are hard!

Mostly the book is the long slow process of Ari learning to communicate with:
- Dante
- his parents
- some girls at high school who it turns out might actually be (ugh) also his friends
- his new stray dog
- the universe
- himself
- and his angry feelings around the gap in his family that represents his brother, who is in prison
- and his complicated feelings around identity and queerness and masculinity
- and how much he really really loves his dog and his truck and maybe also some people

It's an almost meditative book and only a romance in its ending moments; most of the beats throughout the book are quiet, resonant, and not necessarily where one would expect them to fall.

Comments

[sasha_feather]

One of my favorite books.

[sovay]

It's an almost meditative book and only a romance in its ending moments; most of the beats throughout the book are quiet, resonant, and not necessarily where one would expect them to fall.

That sounds really lovely and a lot calmer than many coming-of-age stories, which is not a bad thing.

[aamcnamara]

I love it so muuuuuuuuch. It's so meditative and slow and understated (with so much in the background) and, just, wonderful!

[bookblather]

I love this book so very very much.

Also, fun fact: Lin-Manuel Miranda narrates the audiobook.

[skygiants]

It's definitely a book that means a lot to a lot of people, and I can see why.

[skygiants]

Yeah -- it's an interesting contrast, because Ari, the narrator, is very angry, but the pacing and the deeply introspective nature of the book balance that out to make for a reading experience that feels very deliberate. The central scenes features the stars as seen from the desert; the book feels like that.

[skygiants]

Thank you and everyone else on Twitter for talking about it so much! :DDD

[skygiants]

OF COURSE HE DOES.

[sovay]

The central scenes features the stars as seen from the desert; the book feels like that.

Nice. And well said.

[next_to_normal]

I've never heard of this book and my first thought upon seeing the title was, "Pretty sure Aristotle and Dante weren't contemporaries, but sure! I'm down for some very inaccurate historical fiction, possibly involving time travel."

I... kind of want to read that team-up now?

[obopolsk]

I adore this book.

[izilen]

I remember loving this book an absurd amount and being very into Ari/Dante but I couldn't tell you any details about it now. Funny how that works? I remember mostly it felt like a good punch through the heart and was very satisfying in the end.