Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Feb 2012 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

Now a major motion picture starring Max Pelayo, Reese Gonzales, and Eva Longoria!
A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021)

This Printz Honor Book is a “tender, honest exploration of identity” (Publishers Weekly) that distills lyrical truths about family and friendship.

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 the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

Ratings and reviews

This whole novel is written in segments of quotable lines -- so much so, that the book ends up feeling like a giant poster of poetic language that makes you chuckle and smirk and quietly laugh and slowly internalize there is nothing more beautiful than allowing ourselves to feel both pain and love so we can equalize all that angst from the lies we tell ourselves or the world. If you're patient, this book will hug you back. It might make you love your parents more, your self more. It might even help you understand that the secrets of our internal universe matter more than those secrets out there in the universe beyond our existence, or that understanding the first will help us appreciate the second that much more.

First time reading a book this long and I never got bored, being of youths I understand their lifes and they're feelings. I see my self more in Aristotle when I read this book I was the same age as him in the beginning, and I was feeling the same way (still am) read this book gave me something to look forward to after getting home from school. As I get older I started to understand Aristotle more and more, some times I wonder why I'm here and why I feel fake just being what people want me to act like. I still haven't found my real self and I hope to find my Dante anyway it's a great book I do of course recommend.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe tells the story of a young teenage boy named Aristotle, beginning in the summer between his sophomore and junior year of high school. Ari doesn't feel like he has any friends, and he always seems to be angry, yet he doesn't understand why. One day he meets Dante, a boy with a personality that is the complete antithesis of Ari's. Dante is happy and easygoing, he cares deeply about animals, and he is able to make friends everywhere he goes. We follow these two boys through the next year of their life, through happiness and sadness and injury and heartache. Typically I am really not a fan of contemporary novels, but I am so glad that I finally picked up this book. It is a book that celebrates and embraces diversity wonderfully. Benjamin Alire Sáenz has a beautiful, lyrical writing style that made all of the characters seem to jump off the page. The cast of characters felt so real, like normal teenage boys dealing with normal teenage boy worries, while their parents were trying to help them navigate through their teenage years. Something very unique and wonderful about this book is the presence and involvement of the boys' parents in their lives. Healthy family units are very rarely seen in young adult literature, and it was so refreshing to see both of these boys interacting with parents who genuinely cared about what was happening in their sons' lives. These families were not perfect, cookie-cutter households by any means, however. But that is what made their presence so special - the families had problems but they dealt with them together and supported each other. I am so used to reading about teens dealing with their problems all alone due to the absence of any kind of parental figure. Or, if an adult character is present, they are often portrayed as completely useless and not helpful to the teens at all. It was so nice to see parents that actually played a large role in the progression of the story. As we travel through this book with Ari and Dante, we learn lessons about acceptance and about love - familial love, love of oneself, and romantic love. Even though I would say one of the main themes of the book is love, it is not romance driven as most contemporary works are. This is not a love story - it is a story of love. If you have read this book, you will know what I mean by that. It is so much more than your typical love story. The boys must learn how to love and accept the problems of their families, their Mexican heritage, and the sexuality of themselves and others. I could not be happier that I decided to pick this book up and give it a try. If you are looking for a book to get you into the contemporary genre that isn't romance driven, this is it. If you are looking for a book that discusses diversity in the most wonderful way, this is it. If you are looking for a book that will make you laugh and cry and will warm your heart, this is it. This book had me crying tears of joy by the end because it was such a heartwarming and wonderful experience. Go give it a try! And Mr. Sáenz, wherever you are, please write more books because I will read them all!

About the author

Benjamin Alire Sáenz is an author of poetry and prose for adults and teens. He was the first Hispanic winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and a recipient of the American Book Award for his books for adults. He is the author of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, which was a Printz Honor Book, the Stonewall Award winner, the Pura Belpré Award winner, the Lambda Literary Award winner, and a finalist for the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award, and its sequel, Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World. His first novel for teens, Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood, was an ALA Top Ten Book for Young Adults and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His second book for teens, He Forgot to Say Goodbye, won the Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award, the Southwest Book Award, and was named a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. He lives in El Paso, Texas.