Aristotle is an angry young man who is quite happy being alone until he meets sweet and kind Dante who immediately becomes his best friend. As the two become older they begin to discover who they really are and figure out the world together.

This is a really sweet book and one that I have heard a lot of great things about so I was expecting a great book and it definitely is just that. I liked that the chapters were short and sweet, which made the book a fast-paced read. The writing was really beautiful and lyrical - the whole story almost felt like a song, there was a dreamy, musical quality to it.

I loved both Ari and Dante in different ways - Ari for being Ari and unapologetically complicated. The story is told through his point of view and while now and again a chapter from Dante would have been nice I don’t think we actually needed that as Dante normally says everything he’s thinking to Ari anyways when Ari is more likely to keep his thoughts to himself. Date is just a sugar muffin and I would love him as a friend - he’s so cute. Both Ari and Dante’s families were wonderful - they were both so different but amazing at the same time in how they talked and communicated with their sons. i especially enjoyed Ari’s relationship building with his dad. I like the fact that both Ari and Dante were Mexican and the conversations they had around that with Dante thinking he wasn’t Mexican enough and often having a problem with being Mexican at all, where Ari embraced his Mexican roots.

The one thing I didn’t like about this book was everyone’s inability to allow Ari to deal with his sexuality personally. I feel like everyone from Dante, Dante’s parents and even Ari’s parents were all okay telling Ari how he felt and who he felt for without letting him figure it out on his own and figuring out the specific details of his feelings. While Dante was so open about being gay, that doesn’t mean Ari had to be (though personally from my reading, I’m thinking he was probably bisexual) and I just hated how pushy he was with Ari. I shipped them more as friends than as a couple to be honest.