Aristotle and Dante Dive Into the Waters of the World

I had high expectations for this book, not only because by being the sequel it had to in a sense one-up the first. But because the first book is so extremely important to me. ‘𝘈𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦 𝘋𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘜𝘯𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘦' made me discover so many things about me and most importantly it helped me relate to a character that is also a poc, queer, and living in the middle of nowhere Texas. A character that is a loner and is afraid to love, be loved, has a tense relationship with their parents, is both distant and close with their siblings, the struggle between being Mexican or American or neither and not fitting in, and is coming to terms with their sexuality. The first book explored a lot of topics and every time I re-read it I see it with new eyes, see a meaningful conversation I missed, and I always shed tears over it because it's written so beautifully and has a place in my heart.With that being said this sequel is not a book I crave to re-read (at all) as I so often do with the first. You can tell Sáenz put in the effort for this book because it's been long-awaited and it was wanted. But the writing seemed forced and way too poetic and unrealistic for a teen. I mean no teen or their friend's just say "Oh,__, I thank the universe every day for giving you to me", or "it's what makes you so beautiful. You have a heart and don't hide it", or "did anvone ever tell you that you have the kind of voice that could heal the world?". There is just so much unrealistic and cringey dialogue between these characters that are still teens that the book made itself un-enjoyable and just made me laugh because it was SO edited to death.It's pretty obvious that the theme in this book is people and the relationships we build with them if we let them see us and vice-versa. As proved with literally every new person Ari met in every new chapter. I mean there were just so many relationships that had to be explored to drive the message across that I lost track. The teachers, the parents, every new friend Ari made, strangers, a person from the past past, etc. It was paced too rapidly and repetitively it just got boring. And there were too many chapters that it didn’t help me maintain focus. It got really annoying that I was getting into it and I flipped one page and there's a new chapter. Or I read two pages and there's a new chapter again. I didn't understand why Sáenz just couldn't space out the wording when the next new chapter/page was where the last sentence left off. And like i said, the first book is so well-paced and by end of it you get the whole message. In this sequel within each chapter their is a new message, new people, repetitiveness, and with the way the chapters are spaced I forget what it's even trying to prove.The chemistry between Ari and Cassandra seemed to be more than the universal experience of friendship, as it is exaggerated. In the scene where they are dancing at the party and Cassandra is slow dancing and all up on Ari with Ari "sens[ing] Dante's eyes on us" was a bit uncomfortable. He knows Dante isn’t comfortable with his boyfriend dancing with someone else (as any significant other would) but still does it. They're way too close with their kissing and everything that I felt like above anything this could've been an opportunity for Ari to explore the topic of his sexuality even further since he just waved off the fact of not being bi. Come on bro🧍🏻‍♀️Additionally what also made me uncomfortable in what is a VERY important and delicate topic in real life is the coming out. I felt that Ari was forced to come out. I understand a little shove of support to come out but not feeling like you OWE it. No one owes their friends, families, or closest people to come out. It's up to the individual to live their life having accepted themselves and knowing the truth to be enough, or opening up when THEY feel it is necessary.This happened with Ari and with Julio who at the end of the book where he finds Julio crying outside because he is a gay kid, who like him, is afraid to come out. Ari quite literally goes to grab his friends and tell them that Julio has something to say to them. I feel it is a better message to tell Julio (or the readers), that you can share your coming out with those close to you when You need to. Not because it is owed to them to know the real you and to "just tell them" when it's something serious that needs time and not just "get it over with".And the whole scene with Ari and his every-new friends discussing basically that gender is what's in your pants was not,,, a very safe place as a queer person when I read this. I felt it could've dived to discuss how gender is NOT what's in your pants and instead talk about the many different sexualities or identity's people can have.I felt that this book is such a downgrade and if anything it makes me not feel the same love I greatly had for this series. This book had a message to prove but by the end it was lost through conversations being forced, unrealistic, and unwanted that I just didn't care for it. I wished it had brought Dante's pov because Ari got annoying since he drives other characters problems back to his own and makes it all about Ari. And he plays off of the fact that because he is gay it is impossible to sexualize a woman since he doesn’t do it “in that sense” (major red flag). I wanted Dante’s pov or more of him but he was barely in this book and felt like an afterthought if it wasn’t for character development for Ari or to be making out with him. Truly there wasn’t even any romance between Ari and Dante. The author just rolled with what they had created and built between the two from the first book. Which is why they didn’t even feel as close, it just FELT like the same sense of love between them was 𝒔𝒖𝒑𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒆𝒅 to be there. I feel it was better left off in the first one where the author actually got it right and didn't create this like try hard Walmart version of the first where the characters aren’t even themselves.If you read this a TW for dead naming and misgendering of a trans character(which the author did not handle correctly). I hope there are those of you out there who can see my perspective, and if not give it a read and let me know your own since I can’t believe I wrote a whole essay over this disappointment lol.

As excited as I was to read this book, I was also scared. The first book was so perfect and amazing, I was afraid this book would not measure up, or go in a direction I didn’t like, or somehow just ruin everything. I needn’t have worried. It was like stepping back into Ari’s familiar world. It really is just a continuation of Ari and Dante’s story and Ari’s beautiful thoughts. Watching him continue to mature and grow was really wonderful. There were a lot of great discussions with Ari’s parents and Dante’s parents. I love their parents!!! More philosophy and poetry. More of Ari and Dante navigating their relationship. More of Ari and Dante just being Ari and Dante. It was all just beautiful and amazing and heartbreaking and poetic and thoughtful and thought-provoking and gorgeous and romantic.The book starts with Ari and Dante going into their senior year of high school; class of 1989. I was a sophomore in high school that year, and I felt like there was a lot more of that era brought into the book and really gave a good idea of what things were like for us kids in those days. I listened to the audiobook and when the music came on at the end I just burst into tears! I’m going to have a major book hangover. I may never emotionally recover. Luckily I can just read or listen to these wonderful books anytime I want! They will definitely be comfort rereads for me for the rest of my life.Lin-Manuel Miranda returns to narrate this audiobook and once again has given us a beautiful performance. Highly recommend the audios of these books!

When I grow up, I want to be Benjamin Alire Saenz. I want his humanity, his joy, his creative verve, his talents. Alas, since I am, in years, far older than Saenz, my aim may be too high indeed. Saenz, with Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World, has once again left me in awe. With his continuation of the love story of the two teens Dante and Aristotle, he has woven a story of gentleness and power, of understanding, of love. In opening the world to his protagonists he has opened the world to his readers. He packs this novel with insights about parenting, teaching, friendship, forgiveness, faith, joy, sorrow, and love. Ari and Dante are high school seniors, navigating the choppy waters of being gay in the 1980s in a community where being gay is equated with the scourge of AIDS, the condemnation of the Church, the contempt of their classmates. Deeply closeted, Ari spends most of the novel hating his gay self and yet wanting to burst out and be free. He must test the waters gingerly and frequently until he becomes someone who can love without fear. Dante, on the other hand, though still closeted as well, is the more adventurous of the two, the artist, the free-thinker. And through it all, they are nurtured by their loving, accepting parents. That is a quality that is not found enough in gay teen novels. Because the two are in their final year of high school, teachers figure into the mix quite frequently. I was pleased to see that my style of teaching was highlighted in the novel, thus validating my career, and indeed the life I led for thirty years. Saenz has a great respect for teachers, and he beautifully portrays those who teach without judgment, those who invite ideas, those who love their students unconditionally. Saenz says, in his afterword, that he felt his earlier, richly acclaimed novel about Ari and Dante was incomplete. With Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World, he has completed the work masterfully, giving us two gloriously beautiful novels about these remarkable boys.

3.5? 3.75? Condense it to 400 pages and maybe it would have been the full 4!I have mixed feelings about this book. On one had I really enjoyed diving back into these characters lives, on the other I felt the book was too long and spent a lot of time just throwing down metaphor after metaphor after simile after flowery prose, rather than progressing the story meaningfully.Every character spoke in ebbs and flows of magnificence, punctuated by fantastic extravagance, it was a lot. I think it wouldn't have hit me in the face as much if it were just a few characters, but whenever we get a new friend or companion join these boys, they too talked like an English masters graduate, rather than a teenager in high school.It's been a while since I read Ari and Dante 1, but I seem to remember Ari being a really insular character who spoke a lot in his head, but not necessarily out loud. This book takes place immediately after the first one ends, and it seems like all of a sudden Ari is the master of paragraphs of monologue. It just felt a little disjointed from the first book in tone.That being said, I did enjoy going back into this world. I loved the significance of the parents - we already had that with Dante's parents in book 1, but in here we really see Ari connect with his mother and father, seeing them as people and almost falling in love with them as human beings rather than just parental figures. We also get a bit of closure with Ari's brother who is in prison, so it was good to see that thread tied off.Like I said earlier, there did seems to b times when chapters would happen and nothing necessarily of significance or importance was written in them, but looking past any of those pages, I liked the topics and elements that were explored in here - feminism, the AIDs pandemic, how important teachers are, racism, family and extended family, love - so even though it was surrounded by flower, this book did spend a lot of time on important and interesting topics.

I fell in love with Ari and Dante's relationship in the first book and I really, really wanted to love this one too, but honestly I struggled to finish it. There are some wonderfully profound and poignant thoughts and speeches weaved into the story but there's just way too many of them. Real people don't interact like this 24/7. Imagine finding every single conversation you have with every person you know or meet so intensely deep and personal it brings you to tears, or on the verge of them. That's what this book is like. There's no normal conversation and it feels so forced and unnatural. And the crying ... gosh, I got so weary of people constantly crying! The author has tried so hard to give the characters depth he ended up robbing them of it completely, because they don't feel like real people at all.I could perhaps have looked past it, if only to indulge in the love story that is Ari and Dante. Isn't that the main reason anyone would reach for this book after all? How sad then that for me it failed even on that level. Dante is not really present for a lot of the latter story. If you're particularly invested in Ari's character development it might be satisfying, but if you're here for their relationship you may get a little bored at times. I'm not sure how the author managed to make me feel like he'd let Ari and Dante down, but somehow he did.My final criticism is the amount of grammatical errors this book has! It's not a deal breaker but when you find so many it just seems very sloppy.To sum up, I feel like this was a wasted opportunity and as such ended up being an unnecessary continuation of Ari and Dante's story. Again, I really wanted to love it, so bearing that in mind I would almost certainly have overlooked a few things that didn't quite work. That says a lot about the overwhelming amount of issues this book actually has, and I'm just left feeling very disappointed. What a shame.

Unfortunately I could not finish this book as it was so frustrating to read. I found the characters and the plot line so ridiculous. But most of all it was the dialogue I could not stand. Nothing about it felt authentic. If there was pain in this book, I could not find it. Even when painful events took place everyone seemed totally OK. I found it unrealistic and silly in the end. It is a real shame as I really enjoyed the first book and read that in one sitting.

Adored its predecessor "Aristotle & Dante Discover the secrets of the universe" - this is the perfect sequel, carrying exactly from the ending of part one. It might not have shattered my heart into quite as many pieces - but is just as moving, and sadder than A&D1, yet infused with so much happiness . Just a total joy. Directly addresses more issues - sexuality, faith, family, identity. (The ending leaves it open for a third instalment as Ari & Dante enter full adulthood ) unlikely I suppose, but who knows ---

I just about died reading this book. Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe if my all time most favourite book and although it cannot be topped, this sequel is a very close second. I’m not going to lie I pretty much cried for the entire second half of the book - not just because of its sadness, but because of its beauty, too. I will forever recommend Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe to literally anyone I interact with anywhere, and can happily add this book on the recommendation list as well!!! Everyone just do yourself a favour and buy this wonderful book.