Amy's Reviews > Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

** spoiler alert ** I thought I was going to /love/ this book, but unfortunately, it just wasn't for me. I wonder if some of it was due to the translation (but not all of it was), and if some of it was due to the genre. I don't read much YA Lit, and I don't think that I will be again any time soon [with the exception of Harry Potter, which is in a league of its own].

The book centers of the friendship of Ari and Dante, two boys who are sort of outsiders in a very "macho" and toxic masculine world. With characters named so prominently, I had REALLY hoped that somehow Aristotle and/or Dante would figure in some prominent way in the book...if they did, I completely missed it. There were a few pages that discussed their names, but it seemed just like an afterthought.

The boys form an extremely close bond and friendship (with a few very dramatic moments), but also have to deal with their complicated family relationships and navigating their time in high school. Dante pretty clearly falls in love with Ari, and as they go and find themselves separated by circumstances, their relationship goes through some trials. Dante confesses his love for Ari, who says that he does not reciprocate those same feelings and just wants to remain friends. Dante somewhat accepts this, but seems to try and push Ari to re-consider things at different points.

My real difficulty (SPOILER ALERT. SERIOUSLY. MAJOR SPOILERS) is that towards the end of the book, after Ari has a difficult confrontation with his family over his brother in prison, the secrets kept from him, his distant relationship with his father, etc...his parents TELL Ari that they know he is in love with Dante, and that they support that love.

The difficulty I have with this is that it contradicts everything that Ari himself says in the book. Then suddenly, Ari and Dante have this reunion moment and mutually confess their continuing love for each other and get a happy ending of sorts (we don't see much of their actual romantic relationship).

A friend of mine who really loved the book (and reads way more YA Lit than I do) mentioned that she interpreted it as Ari not being aware of his own feelings because of the hyper-masculine culture in which he lives, and because he is afraid to even allow himself to acknowledge how he feels for Dante. And I do know that many of my LGB friends in real life have discussed confusing feelings of love/attraction with intense friendship because they grew up in heternormative cultures and didn't consider any alternative...they didn't have a language to interpret what they felt. As I am not myself LGB, I don't feel completely comfortable saying definitively that Ari did /not/ have romantic feelings for Dante...I guess I just wish that the storyline had been handled differently.

Ari is the main narrator of the book, but I felt completely distanced from him and his feelings and interior life, despite the fact that the book is written in first person. I had hints of it here and there, but not nearly as much as I wanted...I felt such a struggle to connect with him deeply because of that. I wish that the book had ended either with Ari and Dante figuring out how to navigate a friendship after realizing Dante's love was really unrequited...OR that if Ari was really dealing with discovering his own feelings for what they really were...that 1) it had been set up better and we had felt some tension earlier. Instead Ari seems very confident, but not overly-defensive about his sexuality early on and 2) MOST IMPORTANTLY...that he wasn't just "told" about it by another character. I felt like this removed a lot of his own agency and diminished the power of the discovery. Having his parents tell him very bluntly (not even with leading questions, like, "Have you considered this may be more than just a friendship?") about his OWN sexuality felt like a cheap ending to me...he should have been able to go through that journey on his own, hopefully with a supportive family (that part was refreshing), but...Ari should've been a bigger part of his own story and discovery about himself in that way.

I think I would’ve felt really differently about this book if it was told from Dante’s perspective. Or if there was way more showing vs telling. In the end, though, this book has obviously touched a lot of people, and I’m so glad for that. It wasn’t a great read for me, but it doesn’t have to be. I’m glad it exists for its target audience.