LGBT Month is hosted by Cayce a Fighting Dreamer and Laura at Laura Plus Books. It runs throughout April and it’s here to celebrate LGBT readers, LGBT authors and of course LGBT books!
Buy on Amazon or Book Depository
Title: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
Audiobook Performer: Lin-Manuel Miranda
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Genre: Young Adult- Contemporary Fiction, LGBT
Release Date: February 1, 2012 print version - April 9, 2013 audiobook version
Source: audiobook via public library/OverDrive – review policy here.
Synopsis via Goodreads:
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.
Oh this story was so different than anything I've read in a long time. The narrator perfectly embraced the Mexican-American accents of Ari and Dante as we discovered diversity within an ethnicity. Growing up in El Paso, Ari and Dante become best friends as they navigate their way through all the ways love can appear its then that the secrets to the universe begin to unravel. Ari and Dante grow up in different homes and often refer to each other as different kinds of "Mexican" or not a real "Mexican". This is my favorite element and not because it's possible to be real or unreal in an ethnicity but because it shows that we're not all the same regardless of ethnicity. Their are different ways to be Mexican-American just as there are different ways to be Irish-American, African-American, etc.
“But love was always something heavy for me. Something I had to carry.”
Every character has their own layers peeled back like a sweet onion chapter after chapter. The burdens each family member carries adds to the boys growth and gives life to the story. The pains and secrets are real. The idea that parents are people with pasts, the secrets we put in place to hide hurt and disappointment, and the truth that is revealed gives the story so much room to breath. And it's just the breath that Young Adult literature needs with a splash of diversity in so many different ways. While Ari and Dante are great protagonists it's each set of parents that really stood out as stars of their own.
“Maybe we just lived between hurting and healing.”
While there are a few 1980's pop culture references this story could easily take place today. Coupled with the pacing and innocent prose the story became a must listen for every minute I had free. It was only the ending left me with discontent. It was in the end that I yearned for the simple ending we were to expect, but alas, life is complicated.
How this book became me...
I was born in 1984 at that time my Mexican-American parents had fallen in love in college in west Texas. This book became personal after a while, I wondered if my dad was in the prose. I wondered if he ever felt like Ari or Dante.
My entire life I have always been described as not really Mexican. This is true, I'm not directly from Mexico. But the blood runs within me and this book let me know that I was not alone, Dante was with me. There's no wrong or right way to be an ethnicity. I cannot change being Mexican-American anymore than I can change being 29 years old, or having brown eyes.
and so I leave you with this quote from Selena the movie:
4.5 Stars
No comments:
Post a Comment