Aristotle And Dante Discover The Secrets Of The Universe - Benjamin Alire Saenz

To write a review on any book requires a critical mind. It requires us to be skeptical about things when we read so that the person reading the review knows exactly what the flaws in the book are before picking it up. I tried. I tried to be skeptical, I tried to find flaws. But I found that there is nothing, absolutely nothing about this book that disappointed me. There were times when I was literally grateful to have found this book and read it. I guess you can call it a love story but it also touches upon many other aspects of life that make you want to think about yourself. There are so many minute details in this book that I really enjoyed that I'd like to mention but before that let's go through the summary:

Ari (Aristotle Mendoza) is a typical teenage boy fighting the same struggles as almost every teenager going through the phase from boys to men. He was always this sort of loner who didn't really mingle with many people. Not that he couldn't but he just didn't want to.  He got this from his father who was also very reserved and didn't speak much about his past or anything for that matter. He was an ex-soldier who fought in a war which naturally meant he had a traumatic past. The book kicks off when Ari meets a random guy, Dante, at the pool who offers to teach him swimming. Now they start hanging out more and eventually, it turns into an unbreakable bond of friendship. Ari and Dante always have each other's backs while they're trying to find their belongingness in this world, trying to find what they mean to each other, trying to find true meaning in life, or rather...trying to find the secrets of the universe.

You might be thinking that there isn't any solid plot in this book and it seems somewhat vague. In a sense, it doesn't have a story as such, but it isn't uninteresting or dull at all. It still makes you want to keep flipping through the pages, to see what happens next. Many real-world issues are also brought up in this book, like sexuality, family feuds, relations, and even the importance of people in life as we grow older. Everything is just so well put, the characters well portrayed, and the dialogues were written just so beautifully. The best part of this book is, it had a truly amazing ending. It's very rare to find such good endings but this book was just beyond my expectations. I would give it a 5/5 without doubt and strongly recommend it to anyone who's looking for a YA (young adult) book to read.