Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

In the wilderness, Ari and Dante are able to love each other without fear of being seen. The language used to describe the forest landscape is beautifully playful and vivid. Conversations grow deeper, reflecting the development and maturation of the young men. Here, Sáenz settles into the flow of the narrative.

The pace accelerates, however, when Ari and Dante go on a camping trip together. The story is slow to start, with roughly one hundred pages of Ari engaging in mundane conversations and ruminating over repetitive thoughts. Getting invested in this novel takes a bit of patience. Now, in addition to the many pressures of being a high school student, Ari must navigate a queer relationship in a landscape that attempts to invalidate his very existence - late 1980s Texas. At the end of the first novel, teenager Aristotle Mendoza comes to terms with his sexuality and acknowledges his love for Dante Quintana. The book picks up where its critically acclaimed prequel “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” left off. Somehow, Benjamin Alire Sáenz manages to touch upon all of these subjects in his latest novel, “Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World.” In doing so, he tastefully creates a multidimensional narrative worthy of every reader’s time. Squeezing homophobia, racism, sexism, grief, a flawed education system, a (non-COVID) pandemic, the navigation of relationships, and the exploration of sexuality into one book sounds like an impossible task.

Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Sáenz