Review - Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz

Holy cow what a title!

We start off with the musings of fifteen year old, El Paso native, Aristotle Mendoza.  It’s summer time and he has very little to do.  Be that as it may, he decides to take a trip to the local pool.  There he meets Dante Quintana, who has just moved to El Paso and thus begins our story.

Aristotle and Dante quickly become fast friends.  Dante teaches Aristotle to swim and Aristotle simply seems to enjoy hanging out with his new best friend.  Over the summer they find out many things about one another and quickly become inseparable. 

But all good things end one way or another and, after a rather intense accident, Dante and his family end up moving to Chicago at the beginning of the school semester.  This leaves the two best friends unable to do anything but write to one another about how their school years are going, what’s going on in their lives, and how much they miss being able to do things together.

I think very early on, you start to see that maybe Dante’s feelings for Aristotle are growing into a little more than friendship.  Dante’s feelings are all but etched out in stone, at least from my perspective.  I also think that after a while Aristotle sees this and tries to deny the fact that he knows that his best friend may have feelings that aren’t of the platonic variety.  In fact, he tries to push such things aside.  When letters become too intense from Dante, Aristotle shuts himself off and avoids any topics that my stray into unfamiliar territory for him.

Seasons come and go and suddenly Dante is back in El Paso and Aristotle finds himself having to face up to what he’s known.  He also is so confused in his head that he really doesn’t know whether to embrace his best friend upon his return, or run in the opposite direction.  Things get a bit heated between the two in regards to tempers flaring and ultimately Aristotle makes decisions that aren’t of the best variety for his heart…or Dante’s. 

I won’t tell you much more as I believe the ending to this to be absolutely beautiful but I will say that after something awful happens, Aristotle seems to come to terms with what he’s feeling and who he is, in a way that I find absolutely commendable and respectable.

For anyone who hasn’t read this book, you definitely should.  I was completely astounded at how much character development Aristotle went through throughout the entire book.  I mean, you have Dante who very much knows who he is and who knows what he believes and feels, and then you have Aristotle who is confused about life and love in general.  He doesn’t know what he’s feeling all he knows is that it “isn’t right” and he “shouldn’t be feeling this way”.  He thinks that maybe it will go away if he denies it and pushes it away.  In the end, he not only brings pain to himself but also to his best friend.

All in all, I found this book to be a great coming of age story and a true testament to what the heart feels and how to stay true to yourself.  I ended up giving this book a 4.5 out of 5 stars on GoodReads and would thoroughly recommend this to anyone looking for a quick but thought provoking novel.

Happy Reading!!