By Nishala Rasiah
“I bet you could sometimes find all the mysteries of the universe in someone’s hand”
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is a heart wrenching coming-of-age story about two vastly different teenagers who form a deep and somewhat inexplicable connection with each other. This book also explores topics such as racial and ethnic identity, sexuality and family relationships.
The blurb:
This story starts off in the summer of 1987 with 15-year-old Aristotle “Ari” Mendoza who is bored, miserable, and friendless and is just trying to get through his summer. One afternoon, Ari goes to the public swimming pool, where a boy named Dante Quintana offers to teach him how to swim. The boy's bond over their classical names and eventually become inseparable and develop an extraordinary friendship, and through this friendship, Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they desire to be.
My Review:
I believe that this book is relevant for young adult readers as it deals with many topics that teenagers struggle with in their day to day lives. Whether it could be loneliness, exploring one’s identity, struggling with mental health or the complications of strained relationships with family.
The main character of this book is Aristotle Mendoza, a quiet boy who has shrunk inside himself as he's grown up with a brother in prison, who he knows nothing about, a mother in denial and a father haunted from participating in the Vietnamese war. And then Dante Quintina came into his life. Dante was such a polar opposite of Ari, but like a light in the otherwise darkness of Ari's mind. They were a strange pair, Aristotle and Dante, but they fit so perfectly together. Dante taught Ari to swim, and became Ari's first ever real friend, let alone best friend. He immersed Ari in art, and books, and a different family life than he wasn’t familiar with. Dante made Ari feel things that he didn't want to.
He made Dante want to share his mind, which was something Ari just didn't do.
The book is slow paced and crafted in short, poem-like chapters which are told completely from Ari’s point of view. The plot was full of small but consequential events through which we’d learn a little bit more about the boys and their relationship with each other and to the ones around them.
Some of the points that made this book so immersive and extremely hard to put down was the way Benjamin Sáenz had perfectly mirrored teenage angst and the struggles that teenagers face during the transition from childhood to adulthood. It is truly astonishing how he creates a bigger picture through the lives of these two boys. One thing I loved was the relationship between Aristotle and Dante. They have such a pure and wholesome relationship that rapidly evolves throughout the story.
Even though I love this book from the bottom of my heart, as everything does, it did have some bad qualities as well. One red flag that particularly stuck out to me is how the book is slightly transphobic. I can’t exactly say how it is since it’s connected to a major spoiler in the book, but to whoever is interested in reading this book, -you’ve been warned-.
But all in all, Words CANNOT express how much I loved this book! I forgot the last time I genuinely said I had a favorite book until now. There is a torrent of emotions this book puts you through! You could
easily go from shaking with laughter, to uncontrollably sobbing and then to pondering about your purpose in life.
This book is definitely recommended to people who are fans of They Both Die at the End and The Song of Achilles.
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