Book Rec: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, by Benjamin Alire Sanez

’ I wanted to tell them that I’d never had a friend, not ever, not a real one. Until Dante. I wanted to tell them that I never knew that people like Dante existed in the world, people who looked at the stars, and knew the mysteries of water, and knew enough to know that birds belonged to the heavens and weren’t meant to be shot down from their graceful flights by mean and stupid boys. I wanted to tell them that he had changed my life and that I would never be the same, not ever. And that somehow it felt like it was Dante who had saved my life and not the other way around. I wanted to tell them that he was the first human being aside from my mother who had ever made me want to talk about the things that scared me. I wanted to tell them so many things and yet I didn’t have the words. So I just stupidly repeated myself.

“Dante’s my friend.” ‘

This is a story about two fifteen year old boys as they grow into themselves, around each other, away from each other and everything in between. 

This is a story about parallels. This is a story about loving, and the lines separating the kinds of it, and identifying what the damn lines are in the first place. This is a story about parents being people, the neverending gawk of adolescence, being lonely and pissed off and sad for no reason and feeling worse when you have one. This is a story about needing, and shoving, and pulling.

And okay, honestly? This book does things to me. This book exceeded the expectations of everything I hoped it would be. This book is the kind of book that eventually gets so dog-eared from all the times you thumb through it that you have to buy another copy. This is the book that you whisper sweet nothings to, and read when you’re not sure what you’re feeling, the book that you have a respect and a love for, because it gave you something.

This book, my faithful peers, is the kind of book you want to press into people’s hands and beg them to just read it and then they’ll understand. 

So I hope you read it. And I hope you find something you needed in it.