Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz - 4.5 stars

[annapi]

Aristotle and Dante are both loners, 15-year-old boys who don't have any real friends. They don't have much in common except that, but they strike up an immediate friendship when they meet at the local swimming pool one summer and Dante offers to teach Ari how to swim.

I loved this book - it's a beautiful coming-of-age story, simple and straightforward with no secret twists and no gimmicks, just a book about friendship and adolescence and the struggle of growing up. It's about young boys trying to discover who they are and what their place in the world is, trying to understand their parents as their parents struggle to understand them and try to guide them through life. It moves at a fairly slow pace, but steadily and with great thoughtfulness, and really captures the confusion and emotions of teenagers. My rating is 4.5 stars, but something holds me back from rounding up - it does pack good punch, but not quite enough all the way to reach that final star. But IMO it most definitely fits the "beautiful" tag.

[Booknblues]

And from the title I was guessing a nonfiction.

Great review.

[Joanne]

Lovely review!

[Joy D]

Booknblues wrote: "And from the title I was guessing a nonfiction."
No, I looked and it is fiction.

[Hebah]

This is such a great contender for the "beautiful" tag. I loved it when I read it for a YA lit class, though it's something I think I would have picked up on my own eventually. I need to read more of Saenz's writing.

[Karin]

Booknblues wrote: "And from the title I was guessing a nonfiction.

Great review."

Same here--the title makes you think it, because, of course, one of the things Aristotle is known for is his cosmology, which dominated most of western European thought for a number of centuries--it was Thomas Aquinas who managed to merge Aristotle's cosmology with Roman Catholocism, although it wasn't accepted until well after he died (sorry, I once did a paper on this for some class or other in university, I think it was in my Women's Studies women and religion class, and don't ask me why I'd have written this for that class or if it was just that professor who wanted a copy of my paper). I wrote that paper more years ago than I care to mention, when not one Women's Studies professor had a Ph. D. in that field, or even a Master's--they were culled from many disciplines and it was an exciting time.

[Booknblues]

Karin, I was expecting something like your paper.

Of course as soon as I read the review I realized it was fiction.

[Karin]

Booknblues wrote: "Karin, I was expecting something like your paper.

Of course as soon as I read the review I realized it was fiction."

Yes, the opening of the first sentence was a dead giveaway that it's fiction!