A Whole Universe Waiting To Be Discovered

~Aristotle and Dante Discover
the Secrets of the Universe~
By Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Amazon ~ Powell's

Dante can swim. Ari can't. Dante is articulate and self-assured. Ari has a hard time with words and suffers from self-doubt. Dante gets lost in poetry and art. Ari gets lost in thoughts of his older brother who is in prison. Dante is fair skinned. Ari's features are much darker. It seems that a boy like Dante, with his open and unique perspective on life, would be the last person to break down the walls that Ari has built around himself.

But when Ari and Dante meet, they bond. They share books, thoughts, dreams, laughter. They teach each other new vocabularies and begin to redefine each other's worlds. And they discover that the universe is a large and difficult place.

This is the story about two boys, Ari and Dante, who must learn to believe in each other and the power of their friendship if they ever are to become men.


I'm a bit out of my comfort zone on this one. Really the only reason I picked it up was for the Jumble Your Genres reading challenge I've taken on. I know I've said I'll read just about anything, but I have to admit that I find Contemporary Fiction just about the hardest thing to review. Not because I hate it, but because there's usually not much left to interpretation. The characters are supposed to be real, the setting is supposed to be real, and the conflicts are supposed to be real. Therefore, if a contemporary novel is written well, it makes the review of it pretty sparse.

Still, I'll give it my best shot.