Title: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
Series: Stand Alone
Author: Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Rating: ★ ★ ½
Source: Brought
Published: February 21st 2012 by Simon and Schuster
Summery: Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison.
Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world.
When they meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the two loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special kind of friendship--the kind of friendship that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through their friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves--and about the kind of people they want to be.
“The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.”
I noticed this book was in so many top 10 book lists, so I decided to pick it up from The Book Depository.
What I thought of the book as a whole
I thought this book was meh.
This book has wayyy to much hype surrounding it on Booktube and Goodreads. Now, don’t get me wrong I don’t regret reading it, but I don’t think I will ever read it again. My No.1 problem with the book was that it had literally, no plot point. . . No Romance, No shockers, No Drama. . . Nothing. It sometimes felt that this entire book was 300 pages of a teenage boy moaning about being a teenage boy.
This book was really well written and did have many quotable lines, but it still didn't make up for how much the lack of plot bugged me. I would say read it if you can get a cheap copy on the kindle shop, however, I don't think this it is a vital read. . . I was expecting this to have really powerful LGBT characters and themes, but that didn't come across well.
I know what I'm about to say will shock plenty of you to your cores, I didn't like Aristotle.
He was probably one of my least favourite characters I've ever read. I often found myself feeling annoyed at how whiny and moody his character could be, he also seemed very selfish at times. . . I was also really annoyed at how his character development was handled, I didn't feel that he grew gradually throughout the story, it kind of happened all at once.
Dante - Second Male Protagonist
In contrast to Aristotle, Dante was one of my all time favourite characters. . . I wish this book had been written from his POV as I think I would have enjoyed reading it a lot more. One of the main reasons I liked Dante so much, was because he was the direct opposite of Aristotle, He was a total free spirit, who wasn't afraid to be different.
I really felt a connection to him, almost like he was a male version of myself. His mother and father were seriously adorable and their family dynamic was amazing, the love they had for each other really pulled at my heart strings.
The Romance
The romance was something that really let me down, I would personally say that the romance was one of the main topics of this book. But it was a total let down, one of my biggest problems with the romance was that I felt Ari realised his feeling for Dante in maybe the last 5 pages !!
Throughout this entire book there was nothing, no longing looks, mushy scenes or desire between the two main characters, In fact, I didn't ever realise Ari had feelings for Dante until the last couple of pages.
The Plot
As you might already able to tell, there was no plot. .. But the side plot points that were added i.e. Aristotle's brother being in prison were highly unnecessary, you could have taken it away and you wouldn't have even noticed.
Overall Impressions – Not terrible but ok
This book was ok, nothing special. . . Don’t buy in to all the hype around this book, only get it if it's on sale.
No comments :
Post a Comment