Book Review: "Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World"

If you're like me, you probably read "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe" (Ari and Dante Book 1) when it came out in 2012. I re-read the book a few times over the course of the next couple of years and I think a lot of people knew how I felt about it. I was pretty obsessed with it for a long time and thought that it was one of the most beautiful YA books ever written. You can check out my initial article on the reading experience I recalled from my teen years here.

I waited a long and arduous nine years for the sequel and followed very carefully when it should be released. I am not going to lie to you, I actually thought it was never going to happen and eventually, I had given up all hope by about 2018. As I was beginning to forget all about my waiting years, a book came up on my recommendations list online as being 'available for preorder' in 2021 - lo and behold it is "Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World". I let out a huge sigh of relief and did I preorder it? Of course I did.

When I read the first book for the first time, I was sixteen going on seventeen, now I'm reading the second book a couple of times, I am twenty-five going on twenty-six and let me tell you, these books never fail to impress me.

Benjamin Alire Saenz is known for his brilliant writing skills, his writing is normally beautiful and filled with extended metaphor - and he's done it again in the sequel. One thing I loved about the sequel is that it explores very much in-depth the character of Aristotle (Ari) as he is in the book and grows up. A lot of people I have heard didn't like the fact that it was 'Ari-heavy' but most of the things happen to Ari and he is the one that requires his character to open up so that the story can progress. But yet again, his character is written brilliantly. A slow-burning, slowly-revealing character that is pushed out into the world and is sometimes stuck in his own head far too much:

“A part of me wanted to run away from all the complications of being in love with Dante. Maybe Ari plus Dante equated love, but it also equated complicated. It also equated playing hide-and-seek with the world. But there was a difference between the art of running and the art of running away.”

Benjamin Alire Saenz also gives us major plot points, changes take place in Ari's life and not all of them are good - in fact, one of those things is incredibly bad and shocks the hell out of the reader. If there was ever a time for this to take place though, it would be in the midst of the second book. I am really just hoping he writes a third one because it simply cannot end here.

In conclusion, I feel like this book though long overdue was totally worth the wait of almost a decade. It continues just at the point where the last book leaves off and we begin to encounter a whole new side to these characters that we have never seen before as they mature into their adulthoods. The questions about Ari and Dante's love are now far more mature and concern not just feeling and legitimacy but also how they can possibly make it work. The absences of various characters add to this equation greatly and the question of whether they will survive this becomes aptly more important.