Hi friends, happy Monday, I hope you’re all doing well! Today I’m posting my review of Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s novel, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by: Benjamin Alire Sáenz: One summer, Aristotle and Dante meet and become friends. An unlikely pair, but somehow it works because it brings out a side to each of them that they’ve never explored before. Both are harvesting secrets that they don’t want to share with the world, but as the two spend more time with each other, they form a unique bond that has them opening up like never before. Not only does it reveal truths about themselves, but has them opening up and finding the truths in their families, too. This novel was good and very fast-paced. This novel didn’t so much have a true plot, but was more character driven. This reader didn’t mind because Sáenz did a great job of giving each of the main characters a weighted backstory that gave the two of them a reason to gravitate towards each other and to open up to one another. Even as the novel continued, the different events that would happen also brought them closer. The friendship in this was so beautifully written and was just really joyous to read about. There were moments throughout where the reader would get frustrated by characters’ inability to communicate or want to communicate, but it also felt very true to the nature of teenagers. It was nice to see parents who were really involved in their kid’s lives, but what the reader didn’t really like was the fact that Aristotle’s parents basically told him how he felt in the end; they didn’t let him come to terms with his feelings himself, which would have been better. The reader thinks it was to show how much the parents cared, but it came off as pushy more than anything else. Despite that, the story moved along well. The reader liked how different issues were brought up, for example, Aristotle’s dad not wanting to talk about the war, or his parents not wanting to talk or acknowledge his older brother, as well as both he and Dante not fitting into their world by not being Mexican enough. These were all conversations that Sáenz so expertly weaved throughout his story in such a gentle and honest way. In the end, this was a well written novel, even if at times the sentences were really short making some of this feel really choppy to read, it was still a good story with memorable characters and a charming message.