From the Bookshelf of Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge…

I was a little unsure about this at first, however. The plot proceeds at a fairly leisurely pace, and it isn’t until about 100 pages in that more of a plot shows up. In short, the story is about finding yourself, figuring out how you fit in...to your friends, your family, your place in the world. Aristotle Mendoza is a Mexican-American teenager, living in El Paso, Texas in 1987. When the novel opens, Ari has just finished his sophomore year of high school and is facing down what promises to be yet another boring summer. Then he meets Dante Quintana at the local pool. Since Dante attends the local private high school, the two have never crossed paths before, but they quickly bond and form a friendship. There’s a lot of talk about their shared Mexican heritage that I’m positive went over my head. At first I was thinking this might be a suitable replacement for The House on Mango Street, but the focus ends up being a little different (still, this is ultimately an uplifting book, and everything else we read in the freshman curriculum tends toward the depressing). Anyway. The first portion of the book deals with the boys’ friendship. There are some hints that Dante might be gay, but it isn’t explored in detail yet. We see the two of them grow closer, and Ari finally gets the nerve to share things with Dante that he wouldn’t dream of sharing with anyone else -- like the story of his brother who has been in jail for most of Ari’s life, or the fact that Ari’s father (who fought in Vietnam) never wants to talk about the past. Though Ari has a decent relationship with his parents, there are clearly a lot of secrets in the Mendoza household.

At the end of the first part of the book (it’s split into multiple sections), Dante stops in the middle of the street to rescue a bird with a broken wing. Ari sees a car speeding towards them and, without thinking, runs into the street to push Dante out of the way. He’s acting purely on instinct, and ends up with two broken legs and a broken arm for his trouble. Dante is luckier (having been pushed out of the car’s path) and both he and his parents are incredibly grateful to Ari for saving Dante’s life. This marks a real change in the boys’ friendship -- Ari genuinely enjoys Dante and his parents, and he wants the Quintanas to like him for him, not because he saved Dante’s life. Ari would really like to forget about the accident altogether. Near the end of the summer, Dante delivers more unfortunate news -- he and his parents are moving to Chicago. His father has a teaching position at the University of Chicago, and the family plans to move for the duration of the school year. The two boys write letters to one another during their year apart, but it would seem that Dante is more invested in keeping their correspondence going than Ari.

I would think most teenagers would find something to relate to in this book, even if they are neither of Mexican heritage nor struggling with their sexuality. For instance, Dante is able to talk about his feelings pretty candidly, both in person and in his letters, and although Ari wishes he could be more like that, he never knows what to say when he sits down and tries to write Dante back. He has a hard time in general expressing how he feels, and I think most teenagers could relate to his inner struggle. I also really love both sets of parents in this book. Dante mentions near the beginning that he wouldn’t think of running away from home because he’s crazy about his parents. And they are indeed pretty awesome. Ari and his mom have a pretty candid relationship as well, and although he’s frustrated with the level of secret-keeping going on around him (no one ever talks about his brother, and his father never talks about the war), he knows he has great parents. I realize there are plenty of terrible and absentee parents in the world, but it’s nice when you get to read about realistically awesome ones.

The single big issue I had with this book was the entire subplot involving Ari’s brother. (view spoiler)[We do finally learn why he’s in jail: he killed a transvestite prostitute with his bare hands. No, seriously. And also he killed a fellow inmate while in juvie, so it seems like he’ll be in prison indefinitely. I honestly would have been fine with never learning what happened to Bernardo, and the handling of that particular subplot felt squeezed in and rushed. I think Ari’s parents decide to finally tell him because they’re worried about Ari’s own temper, but again, it feels shoehorned in, and we never see Ari really think about and deal with the information. He just sort of processes it quickly and moves on. (hide spoiler)] That point aside, I really did love this book. The writing style is dialogue-heavy, but doesn’t sacrifice character development. And although many of the chapters are quite sort, it somehow never ends up feeling choppy. It reminded me somewhat inexplicably of Going Bovine, with which it shares almost no common ground, save the fact that both books are narrated by teenage boys. Maybe it was the somewhat antagonistic nature of the early friendships between both sets of boys? I have no idea.

Overall I thought this was a great read. I was a little torn at first on whether or not I liked that it sort of turned into...not romance exactly, but that Dante and Ari’s friendship became more about one or both of them being in love, rather than just being friends. On the one hand, I do think there need to be more stories out there that show young people struggling with their sexuality, as that’s a real issue that real people really deal with. And this novel certainly explores it from an honest standpoint. On the other hand, I sort of wish the book had just been about two boys who become best friends, period. Boys tend to have a hard time talking about their feelings, and it might be good for them to see two teenagers starting and continuing a friendship, and what that actually means. Ultimately, I fell in favor of the way the story was told, because as I said, it’s a real issue, and also Saenz handles it in a way that feels authentic.