A review by scottish0reader
Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

dark emotional funny sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

What a beautiful book with a beautiful story. The writing is magnificent, and I know I will be thinking about this duology for a long time.

This book, while not as good as the first one, was still amazing. I liked seeing Aristotle and Dante try to figure out how to be in a relationship with each other, and that it isn't always sunshine and rainbows, that there will be days when you argue and won't want to speak to each other. I loved Cassandra and her and Ari's relationship, and I liked seeing Ari grow closer with his other friends. One thing I would have liked, was to see who Dante's friends where, as while I know he's friends with Ari's friends, they're Ari's friends first, so it would've been nice to see who he hung around with in school, or even for him to just makes friends who were his first. A lot of the story makes Ari portrayed at the loner and Dante as the social butterfly, but when you think about it, it's completely the other way around.

One thing that began to annoy me with this book, is how everything was tied to being gay. Like, I understand it was the 80's (I think), and being gay was a lot more scary back then, but EVERY. SINGLE. THING. in this book was tied to being gay. Like, Ari would look at a flower and be like "I don't like flowers because they signify women and I do not like women. When I am older I will be killed for being gay.". Like take a fucking break for fucks sake. They could all be having a brilliant time, and Ari or Dante would ruin the mood to talk about how they'd be slaughtered for liking men when they're older. Actually just let your brain rest and be a normal kid for five minutes.

I don't have much to say about the death of Ari's dad other than I am heartbroken and will never recover.

Now, let's talk about the ending, because I have some mixed feelings. I think having some drama was nice, as by halfway through this book there wasn't really a lot of Ari and Dante, but it was so close to the end of the book that it just wasn't enjoyable. I know that they did end up together in the end, but it still felt open ended and I didn't really enjoy it. At least they ended up together though I guess.

All in all, I loved this book so much. So glad I read it!