BOOK REVIEW: ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE

Mental health - Family - Friendship - Mexican representation - Discovering yourself

Author: Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Genre: YA fiction, Historical fiction

Page Count: 368 pages

Trigger Warnings: Homophobia, mental illness

“I hated being volunteered. The problem with my life was that it was someone else's idea.”

“Words were different when they lived inside of you.”

Aristotle, "Ari" Mendoza finds himself a lonely boy, a lonely and sad boy -- fifteen, bored and miserable, as stated in the book. With his brother, who in itself is rarely spoken about in the house, behind the bars, his father living in the trenches of his past, and rarely any amount of social stigma, his mother becomes his only friend, and even she can't provide him with all the answers he needs. When he meets Dante, however, he finds the new boy becoming his main solace, and opens up to him, allowing a friendship he's never sanctioned before. This book follows them through the course of three summers, and the two grow closer, establishing a kind of friendship Ari's never been able to experience.

This book has stolen my heart and soul, following two boys over the time of three consecutive summers. I read this in a single sitting, on Christmas Day, and haven't been able to stop thinking about it long after that. Benjamin Alire Saenz provides such a unique outlook on growing up, making friends, and connecting with people -- presented with such a lyrical and poetic style of writing, the dedication of this book writes, "to all the boys who've had to learn to play by different rules", and I couldn't better explain it myself.

The plot of this book follows no such particular idea, nor really an event of such sort, and some would argue that it doesn't have any plot at all. Though there's no streamline of events that seem interconnected, the plot seems to focus on an idea rather than a situation, and it states itself in the title. There's a quote in the book that goes, "As Dante was watching me search sky through the lens of a telescope, he whispered, 'Someday I'm going to discover all the secrets of the universe.'" Though it doesn't follow the similar events that would form a plot in any other book, the rest of the book seems to prove this the main idea, or such goal that Ari has. He states, in one chapter, “Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer could end in a downpour. Could end in lightning and thunder.” There are numerous other examples or quotes, such as this in the book, and they lead me to believe that the plot follows Ari trying to figure out the secrets of the universe -- rather than being based around a particular event or even such motivation, there's an inspiration, or rather a question for its use of plot. Though the book holds a place of sentiment and encaptures it's readers, I found that the beginning got off to a slow start. There was little to nothing happening, and while we were learning about Ari, there was nothing that made us care about him -- or even surprised us such as an inciting incident would have. Though meeting Dante is proven to be the inciting incident, it doesn't bring much grasp on the reader, because I found it challenging to care for Ari, thus eliminating any resonation I would have for the inciting incident.

Living in Ari's head is a strangely exhilarating experience, for the fact that there's no reasoning behind his thoughts, no sort of explanation. The narration in this book is lyrical, poetically written, yet it finds a way of using such simple words to convey such intricate emotion -- and it makes one wonder how someone so miserable can have such beautiful thoughts. Ari's character in itself is of much intrigue, as is Dante, and the diversity, the two boys being Mexican-American is rooted down within the characters -- however the two couldn't be more different, and Ari finds himself learning things from Dante he didn't even know he was looking for. It's almost frightening to write this part, as the scope of character Dante and Ari have is more than I could ever convey, and there is no right way to do it justice. Ari finds himself trapped in his head, always angry -- angry at his mom, angry at Dante, angry at his brother, angry, angry, angry. While Ari is ridden to the point of mental blindness with this anger, Dante is more appreciative, and he finds love in everything -- though the two would not seem to be friends, they grow surprisingly close together. Their emotions are strong, and so clearly presented in the book, the two seem more human than ever, sticking to more than these cliched facades listed -- reading it was almost as if speaking with a friend. The writing adds to much of this, as the narration is none like I've ever seen, and it flows through the book while holding down the emotions, and instilling them in the reader.

This book is one that teaches many a lesson, and there are so many to chose from that if I were to write them all, it would take the entirety of this blog post. With such true-spoken words written on the page, one of the main themes to be derived are the notions of love -- love is figuring yourself out, figuring the other person out, and then figuring out how you're going to fit in this world together. This resonates back to Ari and his father, who is ridden in his past, and Ari clearly states how loving his father has proven to be a notion of work rather than what love is supposed to feel like. Though the task becomes difficult, he eventually finds it in himself to make his father open up, and the two of them together figure out and understand each other. They do try to fit themselves into the world, doing things that fathers and sons would regularly do, though that seems to be a bigger challenge. The other theme, one stated in the book, says when we want something, we are, most of the time, ridding ourselves of it. When Ari says, "All this time. This was what was wrong with me. All this time I had been trying to figure out the secrets of the universe, the secrets of my own body, my own heart. All the answers had always been so close and yet I had fought then without even knowing it." This becomes an altering moment of realization for Ari, and he realizes he was holding himself back all this time.

A lyrical and poetically painted novel, Benjamin Alire Saenz had told the story of the universe through the perspective of two teenage boys, and the truth written in this story is so compelling.

Characters: 5/5

Plot: 4/5

Pacing: 5/5

Overall: 14/15

Recommended for fans of Darius the Great Is Not Okay, The Sound of Ice and it's sequel, The Multitudes Within Me (On Wattpad only).