Book review: Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Saenz

 Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World

By Benjamin Alire Saenz

Finished reading: 19/10/21

My rating: 4/5 stars

“You're every street I've ever walked. You're the tree outside my window, you're a sparrow as he flies. You're the book that I am reading. You're every poem I've ever loved.”

“[…] there weren't any words for what was happening, and even though words were important, they weren't everything. A lot of things happened outside the world of words.”

AADDITWOTW is the long-awaited sequel to ‘Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe’. The sequel continues on from the end of the first novel and explores the next stage of Ari and Dante’s lives as they begin their final year of high school and navigate the complexities and oddities of adult life.

After rereading the first book in August this year I was so desperate to read the sequel and lose myself in Ari and Dante’s story once again. This was one of the most hotly anticipated YA novels to be released this year and my expectations, like everyone else’s, were definitely high given how amazing the first book was.

I was initially surprised that the sequel was to be released in autumn as summer is such a key theme in the first novel and I assumed that would be the same in the second novel. However, AADDITWOTW begins to differ from the first novel after the first few sections. It begins to lose the sun-bleached summer tones and becomes slightly more serious, angsty and political, including references to AIDS, homophobia, racism, sexism, death, and high school politics. It certainly feels much more like an autumn or winter read, highlighting events like Thanksgiving, Halloween and New Year’s Eve instead of summer. This created a definite new phase of life for these characters. Summer is so often associated with the sweetness and innocence of childhood and in book 1 Ari and Dante are still boys. But by book 2, Ari and Dante are becoming men and are experiencing a frosty welcome into adulthood. The autumn and winter setting interestingly captured this bleakness of moving from childhood to adulthood.

This shift in setting and atmosphere definitely influenced my enjoyment of the book. I loved the first half of this book so much. The summer camping trip made me so unbelievably happy I was so grateful to be blessed with so many cute Ari and Dante moments. Saenz’s writing provides one of the most beautiful description of love that I’ve ever read. It was so gorgeously poetic and heart-warming that it gave me goosebumps and I couldn’t help but smile to myself. The beginning had the same unique sparkle as the first novel and did not fail in providing closure on the end of book 1. I loved that we also got to see more of the boys’ families and see these relationships grow stronger.

A new addition to the sequel was the focus on friendship and seeing Ari opening up to more people. Although I really loved this character development for Ari, I didn’t fall in love with these new characters as much as the original ones. What I loved about the first book was that there weren’t many characters and it felt much more intimate and special. However, the sequel introduces new friends, classmates, teachers, family members, and neighbours. I didn’t feel that all these characters were particularly necessary, and it just led to losing time with the original well-loved characters. Even Dante was not featured as much as I would have liked. But at the same time, it was good to see the story progress beyond its simpler origins. It provided more scope for more kinds of life lessons and gentle wisdom.

I really enjoyed the character development and mix of new themes throughout. Ari’s fear of his sexuality was not explicit but was hugely prevalent throughout book 1 but it was good to see this fear explored much more deeply in Ari’s thoughts but also in his discussions with others as he comes to terms with this. I also liked how Dante’s flaws and the flaws in his and Ari’s relationship were brought to light in this novel. It was interesting to see how they both dealt with these challenges outside the rose-tinted spectacles on summertime. The exploration of school-life was unusual for a YA novel in that it focused a lot on the role of teachers’ influence on students rather than just student and teacher relationships. Like book 1, book 2 proves to have the same deep philosophical analysis of everyday life.

The first novel wasn’t particularly plot driven by any means. However, when comparing it to its sequel, book 1 seems a lot more structured in terms of plot and themes. Book 2 lost direction in my opinion, it lacked that special spark of the first. The individual chapters were interesting on their own however there wasn’t enough of an over-arching plot. I found the ending to be rushed and a little cliched, this really surprised me as Saenz’s writing is usually so unique and different from anything I’ve read. The ending just didn’t sit right with me and left me dissatisfied. Considering that book 2 is much longer than book 1, it seemed strange that much less happened. The overall message was unclear to me and the build up simply did not pay off. I started this novel assuming that this would be the end of the story and provide all the necessary closure. I don’t know if Saenz is planning to write a book 3, but I almost feel as though we need a book 3 to justify book 2. Book 2 opened new gaps and didn’t close them. I’d like to see a book 3 to complete this task but also to explore the next phase of Ari and Dante’s lives beyond high school. However, I also wouldn't be surprised if book 2 is the end of this story because it was only ever intended to be a standalone novel. But we can still hope!

This book was so hard to rate as the beginning fully deserves 5 stars because I was utterly in love with it but the ending deserves more like 3 stars. For this reason, I settled on 4 stars which seems accurate given that I enjoyed a lot of it but didn’t enjoy it as much as book 1. I worry that my high expectations going into this book affected my enjoyment of it. I was trying very hard not to compare it to the first book as I know how incredibly and overwhelmingly challenging it must have been to follow such a successful and well-loved novel. However, this novel was a continuation of the first, so it felt necessary to review it as such. I’m interested to see how others have rated this book as I know many may prefer the themes and tones of this book so I’m excited to read others’ reviews. Overall, still a beautiful book, but it didn’t blow me away in the way I wished it had.