All the serets of the universe

Hello everyone!

I recently received another book as a class reader. The book is called "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe" and the author is Benjamin Alire Saenz. It's a wonderful book about friendship, family relationships, sexuality, identity, selflove and much more. I would highly recommend the book for teenagers because the two main characters Aristotle and Dante are both teenagers and it shows how life really is and the struggles they have to face.

In the book, one person is especially struggling because of their past. It is Ari's father, who suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome. He had had it since he was back from the Vietnam war. His mother noticed the changes after the war and said: "There’s a wound somewhere inside of him ....". Because of his mental illness, he has a very difficult relationship with his son Aristotle because he doesn't communicate with him and Ari thinks he is just not interested in him. The book doesn't mention if Aristotle has a mental illness, but you can see from the book that he has to struggle with a lot of things. What has already been mentioned is the relationship with his father, Ari suffers because of his family situation. Ari also has problems with his cultural identity. What's also very difficult is the whole situation with his brother, he often feels alone and tries to find his sexuality. He doesn't have it easy in life and this is also described very well in the book. The following quote for instance shows that : “The world was so silent. There was a barrier between me and the world, and I thought for a moment that the world had never wanted me and now it was taking the opportunity to get rid of me.”

The movie The Deer Hunter is also about a friend group that served in the Vietnam war. It shows the difficulties of returning to a normal live and shows the traumatic effect of the war. The film and the book show how people deal with it, what it does to the whole family situation and what kind of challenges there are afterwards. In the book the mother says I don’t think the war will ever be over for him. I think this phrase shows that the father cannot live like he did before because of the trauma of the war.

Aris and Dante’s families are very different. Ari's parents don't have as well paid jobs as Dante’s family. Ari's mother is a teacher and his father is a mailman. On the other hand Dante's mother is a psychologist and his father is an English professor. The relationship with their parents is also very different. Ari and his father do not have a good bond and they do not communicate that much with each other. Dante's family on the other hand is very open, communicative and supportive.

I would recommend this book to anyone because it shows real life and shows that life is not perfect. It is also perfectly ok to feel different and not be like the others or the average person and the book shows that very well. I think the book is very good and somehow it is also super realistic.  It is also a break from the normal teenage books where it feels like the same thing always happens.

So, if you have the chance to read the book, go ahead and read it. You will not regret it :)

If you already read the book, please let me know what you think about it!

How did you like

it? What did you like? What did you not like?

Talia