![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eldabeOk so a few years ago a friend of mine, H, recommended and lent me Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secretes of the Universe.
And I highly, highly recommend that book. I inhaled it the first time I read it and it's one of those books I don't reread very often because it's just beautiful and fragile and not a book I want to ruin by rereading too much.
Well, the sequel just came out (after a long, long wait) and I tried to be slow in reading it but I basically inhaled the whole book over the weekend. (THANKS, H, FOR SENDING ME A COPY WHEN I SAID I WAS TOO ANXIOUS TO BUY IT RIGHT NOW)
This book is A Lot. And not in a bad way! Just it is telling a lot of different stories about growing up and it's a lot to pack into one book. It ripped my heart out in the best way.
It's also perhaps one of the best books about friendship I've ever read. The way different friendships can grow in all sorts of weird organic ways and how friendships can happen unevenly or unexpectedly and one day you....have friends? It's stunning and lovely and honestly I don't know if I've seen better or more poetic portrayals. Friends are so often the background of the story and in many ways friends are the highlight of this one.
And that's probably my favorite part.
The family stuff is also gorgeous and I am NOT RECOVERED from what happened to Ari's dad. I'm going to have to reread the first book and then this one can cry about Jaime a lot, I know.
But...ugh ok. The reason I'm typing up my thoughts is because I'm just a little frustrated with the Dante story. And like. Ok. I get it. The first book was Ari and Dante's story. This book is what happens next, it's the AFTER part of the "happily ever after." And like, I get that every day is not about your partner. And it's clear Dante has a life outside of Ari too, and we don't see it because they have different lives.
But the end was just...frustrating. I feel like a few different themes (protests, older queer mentors, a life outside El Paso) got crammed into the last ten pages along with resolving the romantic story but I feel like...nothing was resolved.
And maybe that's the point, maybe the point is that we don't know what's going to happen, but the boys aren't giving up yet, but they haven't talked about it. Do they want to try long distance (admittedly, a thing I, a person in a long distance relationship, would like them to talk about)? Are they going to constantly travel to see each other? Is Ari going to sell his aunt's house so he can pay for a more expensive college? Will they try to graduate early? WHAT IS THE PLAN?
I know their struggles to communicate were part of the story, but they feel so painfully unresolved and I dunno. I'm frustrated. I wish Ari had shared his journal with Dante. I wish Dante had forced Ari to use his words at last. It feels like a lot of the book danced around the college question and the end was a rushed non-resolution.
Sigh.
So my feelings are a little messy. It's BAS's book, of course, and I know this was a really important one to him and I'm so glad he got to touch on issues he didn't get in the first book. I actually thought it was really appropriate, if unintentional, that Ari just ignored the AIDs crisis the first book and then spends the second book with it intruding in his whole life. Because it was only in the second book that Ari admitted he was gay, even to himself. And by the end of the book, he still doesn't like that part of himself!
And I'm less frustrated with that on its own because the book makes it clear, again and again, that Ari might not be happy being gay, but he loves Dante and it's a cornerstone of his being. And so I'm ok with his views on his sexuality being through the prism of his love for Dante....but that storyline is the one that doesn't get satisfyingly resolved (for me) so then it spirals into the rest. Like...would Ari have dated in college if he and Dante broke up? Dante was the one who was exploring in the first book, it's not clear Ari is ready for that even now. And that doesn't matter if he wants to be with only Dante but it DOES IF THEY ARE BREAKING UP.
To be clear, the book is amazing and highly, highly recommended. This is a duology that is likely to become a complicated classic and I think it deserves it.
There's a small part of me that feels obligated to acknowledge that part of my frustration probably comes from the fact that I read fic that addressed this that I found more satisfying. See, when I read the first book, I went through the entire fandom tag on AO3 (a thing I haven't really had time to do since high school.) It's a small fandom. And I found the top two fics and I have reread them probably more than the book, because, being fics, they were shorter and less overwhelming each time.
And one of them, "Twenty, Thirty, Forty" by psocoptera, solved this problem by having them choose a college together and then struggling with that decision and the impacts of being young and in college together.
And the other fic, "Leave the Light on" by novelized had them break up over college...and then come back together afterward, beautifully.
And I love both of those works. And neither of them are only about the romance and the shipping but they still, IDK, prioritize it? And it felt like Aristotle and Dante Dive Into the Waters of the World just didn't prioritize it in the same way. And like, I know me, I bet I'll re-read and cry and a lot and get over it, but I wanted to just record my tangled weird feelings at least.
And I highly, highly recommend that book. I inhaled it the first time I read it and it's one of those books I don't reread very often because it's just beautiful and fragile and not a book I want to ruin by rereading too much.
Well, the sequel just came out (after a long, long wait) and I tried to be slow in reading it but I basically inhaled the whole book over the weekend. (THANKS, H, FOR SENDING ME A COPY WHEN I SAID I WAS TOO ANXIOUS TO BUY IT RIGHT NOW)
This book is A Lot. And not in a bad way! Just it is telling a lot of different stories about growing up and it's a lot to pack into one book. It ripped my heart out in the best way.
It's also perhaps one of the best books about friendship I've ever read. The way different friendships can grow in all sorts of weird organic ways and how friendships can happen unevenly or unexpectedly and one day you....have friends? It's stunning and lovely and honestly I don't know if I've seen better or more poetic portrayals. Friends are so often the background of the story and in many ways friends are the highlight of this one.
And that's probably my favorite part.
The family stuff is also gorgeous and I am NOT RECOVERED from what happened to Ari's dad. I'm going to have to reread the first book and then this one can cry about Jaime a lot, I know.
But...ugh ok. The reason I'm typing up my thoughts is because I'm just a little frustrated with the Dante story. And like. Ok. I get it. The first book was Ari and Dante's story. This book is what happens next, it's the AFTER part of the "happily ever after." And like, I get that every day is not about your partner. And it's clear Dante has a life outside of Ari too, and we don't see it because they have different lives.
But the end was just...frustrating. I feel like a few different themes (protests, older queer mentors, a life outside El Paso) got crammed into the last ten pages along with resolving the romantic story but I feel like...nothing was resolved.
And maybe that's the point, maybe the point is that we don't know what's going to happen, but the boys aren't giving up yet, but they haven't talked about it. Do they want to try long distance (admittedly, a thing I, a person in a long distance relationship, would like them to talk about)? Are they going to constantly travel to see each other? Is Ari going to sell his aunt's house so he can pay for a more expensive college? Will they try to graduate early? WHAT IS THE PLAN?
I know their struggles to communicate were part of the story, but they feel so painfully unresolved and I dunno. I'm frustrated. I wish Ari had shared his journal with Dante. I wish Dante had forced Ari to use his words at last. It feels like a lot of the book danced around the college question and the end was a rushed non-resolution.
Sigh.
So my feelings are a little messy. It's BAS's book, of course, and I know this was a really important one to him and I'm so glad he got to touch on issues he didn't get in the first book. I actually thought it was really appropriate, if unintentional, that Ari just ignored the AIDs crisis the first book and then spends the second book with it intruding in his whole life. Because it was only in the second book that Ari admitted he was gay, even to himself. And by the end of the book, he still doesn't like that part of himself!
And I'm less frustrated with that on its own because the book makes it clear, again and again, that Ari might not be happy being gay, but he loves Dante and it's a cornerstone of his being. And so I'm ok with his views on his sexuality being through the prism of his love for Dante....but that storyline is the one that doesn't get satisfyingly resolved (for me) so then it spirals into the rest. Like...would Ari have dated in college if he and Dante broke up? Dante was the one who was exploring in the first book, it's not clear Ari is ready for that even now. And that doesn't matter if he wants to be with only Dante but it DOES IF THEY ARE BREAKING UP.
To be clear, the book is amazing and highly, highly recommended. This is a duology that is likely to become a complicated classic and I think it deserves it.
There's a small part of me that feels obligated to acknowledge that part of my frustration probably comes from the fact that I read fic that addressed this that I found more satisfying. See, when I read the first book, I went through the entire fandom tag on AO3 (a thing I haven't really had time to do since high school.) It's a small fandom. And I found the top two fics and I have reread them probably more than the book, because, being fics, they were shorter and less overwhelming each time.
And one of them, "Twenty, Thirty, Forty" by psocoptera, solved this problem by having them choose a college together and then struggling with that decision and the impacts of being young and in college together.
And the other fic, "Leave the Light on" by novelized had them break up over college...and then come back together afterward, beautifully.
And I love both of those works. And neither of them are only about the romance and the shipping but they still, IDK, prioritize it? And it felt like Aristotle and Dante Dive Into the Waters of the World just didn't prioritize it in the same way. And like, I know me, I bet I'll re-read and cry and a lot and get over it, but I wanted to just record my tangled weird feelings at least.
