Sahil Javed's Reviews > Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World

Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World is the well-awaited sequel to Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. In the first book, Aristotle and Dante, two lost teens, find solace in each other and the love they have for one another. The first book ends with Aristotle realising that he is in fact in love with Dante. The sequel picks up where we left off and follows these two boys as they navigate this new relationship amidst the cruelty of the world.

“I once thought that you could find all the secrets of the universe in someone’s hand.

And I think that’s true. I did find all the secrets of the universe in your hand. Your hand, Dante.”

It’s no secret that Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is one of my favourite books of all time. It had a really nice exploration of masculinity, a soft, wholesome romance between two boys which develops so excruciatingly slowly but is so wonderful in all its slow burn wonderfulness. The sequel was even better, tenfold, if that’s even possible at all. It was so heartwarming seeing the relationship between these two boys develop, especially as it was during a really difficult time for gay people where AIDS was inflicting so much pain and death on everyone and nobody was helping, instead choosing to remain silent and deliberately oblivious. I like that the novel included those elements, showing that for Ari and Dante, although they had found each other, it was going to be a complicated and hard life at times.

“And then I heard myself whisper, “Mom, why didn’t anybody tell me that love hurts so much?”

“If I had told you, would it have changed anything?”

The relationship between these boys has my whole entire heart. The first book had so many cute moments but they were mainly moments of friendship because it takes Aristotle the whole novel to realise that he is in love with Dante and the novel ends with them kissing. So in the sequel we finally get to see the development of their relationship and the way they navigate the world together and it was glorious. It was sweet and wholesome, with the cute moments they had with one another and their kisses and interactions. It was exciting, because of the desire they were discovering for one another and their own bodies. And it was tense because they are navigating another part of their relationship, discovering both the positives and negatives of each other’s personalities and individual natures.

“There’s a world out there that’s going to make you feel like that you don’t belong in this country—or any other country, for that matter. But in this house, Ari, there is only belonging. You belong to us. And we belong to you.”

Being in Ari’s head makes me so emotional because of how much I connect with him as a character. He’s an overthinker who relies on his words and it was nice seeing him finally develop that relationship that he had with words and how he used it as an outlet for his feelings. But the way he thinks and the way he feels was so wholesome to watch and it made me so emotional. I love these two fictional characters so much and I can’t express into words just how much they mean to me. This novel developed them both as characters really well and it’s crazy how much they have grown and learned since the first book and even since the beginning of this book to the end.

“Life, Ari, can be an ugly thing. But life can be so incredibly beautiful. It’s both. And we have to learn to hold the contradictions inside us without despairing, without losing our hope.”

One of my favourite aspects of the first book was the family dynamics and they were even better in the sequel. The relationships that both Ari and Dante have with their parents is so wholesome and the conversations that come out of these relationships are some of my favourites of all times. In a lot of YA novels, the parents are normally absent or there isn't a good relationship there. But the reason I love these books so much is because they portray such a healthy parent-child relationship, especially between Ari and his parents as he grows to realise that he loves them a lot and has failed them in his own way by assuming that they didn’t understand him when in reality it was him who didn’t understand them. It was heartwarming seeing Ari grow closer to his father and push past the obstacles that kept them apart. That development, along with Ari finally confronting his brother, really helped him grow as a character and you can see how much he has fully matured and adapted to his circumstances since the first book and I felt honoured being a part of that journey.

“When you are standing all alone,” she whispered, “the people who notice—those are the people who stand by your side. Those are the people who love you.”

Ari’s growth and development as a character meant that he was opening up his social circle and instead of staying as a loner, which he did for a lot his life, he starts to branch out to other people, such as Susie and Gina from the first book and a new character that is introduced, Cassandra. Oh my god the friendships that Ari forms with these girls filled my whole heart with so much love. They bond and they grow closer and they are truly there for each other the most important ways and I can’t even express to you how important that was for the story and for Ari’s character development. You can tell that he is truly a better person from just knowing these girls and I’m really glad that these friendships were such a central part of the story.

“I don’t ever want to wake up,” he whispered.

“We have to go home.”

“I’m already home. I’m with you.”

That made me smile. Such a Dante thing to say.”

The only complaints I have about this book is the fact that I felt like the ending was really rushed. There’s an event that happens between the two boys that felt really abrupt and random and then what follows also feels rushed, but although I’ve said that, I still nevertheless really enjoyed the way the novel was concluded. The only other thing is that there’s a major event that happens towards the last quarter of the novel that to me felt like it came out of nowhere. It made me really emotional and it was so unfair but it also felt like there was no warning? But these were really minor things and didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the novel.

“Maybe all we were meant to do on this earth was to keep on telling stories. Our stories—and the stories of the people we loved.”

Overall, I can’t express to you just how much I adored Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World. Just like the first book, it was adorable and wholesome whilst also addressing some really important issues. The relationships that are portrayed in this book, the central one between Ari and Dante, the one between the boys and their parents, the friendships between Ari, Dante and Gina, Susie and Cassandra, are done so well and genuinely filled my heart with so much love and warmth that I felt like it was impossible to keep it all in. I just need to tell everyone about this book. Thank you, Benjamin Alire Saenz, for writing this book. We had to wait a while but the wait was worth it because my heart feels full of joy and adoration for Ari and Dante. These two books have my entire heart. And I am so damn happy they exist. Thank you!

Some of my favourite quotes (basically the whole book):

“And then there was this: Love didn’t just have something to do with my heart—it had something to do with my body. And my body had never felt so alive. And then I knew, I finally knew about this thing called desire.”

“I love the rain more than anything.”

“I know. I want to be the rain.”

“You are the rain, Dante.” And I wanted to say You’re the rain and you’re the desert and you’re the eraser that’s making the word “loneliness” disappear. But it was too much to say and I would always be the guy that would say too little and Dante was the kind of guy who would always say too much.”

“And he asked me, “Why don’t you ever sing?”

“Singing means that you’re happy.”

“You’re not happy?”

“Maybe only when I’m with you.”

I loved when I said something that made Dante smile.”

“She just looked at me in that same kind of way that she had always looked at me. And I wondered if I could ever look at anybody like that, a look that held all the good things that existed in the known universe.”

“Everything was so new. It felt as if I had just been born. This life that I was living now, it was like diving into an ocean when all I had known was a swimming pool. There were no storms in a swimming pool. Storms, they were born in the oceans of the world.”

“I thought of the sound of his voice the very first time I heard it. I didn’t know that voice was going to change my life. I thought he was only going to teach me how to swim in the waters of this swimming pool. Instead, he taught me how to dive into the waters of life.”

“Last year, Mr. Blocker said we could find ourselves in our own writing. All I could think was this: Sounds like a good place to get lost. Yeah, I think I might get lost a hundred times, a thousand times, before I find out who I am and where I’m going.”

“Sometimes I had beautiful words living inside of me and I just couldn’t push those words out so that other people could see they were there.”

“My mother smiled—and then she broke into a very soft laugh. She ran her fingers through my hair. “Oh, Ari, let your sisters love you. Let yourself be loved. For all you know, there’s a long line of people wanting you to let them in.”

“I didn’t know if I was crying because of what my father had said. I think that was part of it. But, really, I think I was crying about a lot of things, about me and my desire for another boy’s body, which was mysterious and terrifying and confusing. I was crying about my brother, whose ghost haunted me. I was crying because I realized how much I loved my father, who was becoming someone I knew. He wasn’t a stranger anymore. I was crying because I had wasted so much time thinking shitty things about him, instead of seeing him as a quiet, kind man who had suffered through a hell called war and had survived.”

“Everyone had disappeared from the universe except the young man whose hand I was holding, and everything that had ever been born and everything that had ever died existed where his hand touched mine. Everything—the blue of the sky, the rain in the clouds, the white of the sand, the water in the oceans, all the languages of all the nations, and all the broken hearts that had learned to beat in their brokenness.”

“I didn’t feel lost as I kissed Dante. Not lost at all. I had found where I belonged.”

“I had never felt this alive and I thought that I would never love anyone or anything as much as I loved Dante in this very moment. He was the map of the world and everything that mattered.”

“I sometimes felt like I’d been asleep for a long time—and when I met Dante, I began to wake up, and I began seeing not only him but the mean and terrible and awesome world I lived in. The world was a scary place to live in, and it would always be scary—but you could learn not to be afraid. I guess I had to decide what was more real, the scary things or—or Dante. Dante, he was the most real thing in my world.”

“Before we left, she told us to always remember the things that matter, and that it was up to us to decide what mattered and what didn’t. She hugged us both. “And remember that you matter more to the universe than you will ever know.”

“It was so easy just to be with Dante. When we touched, it seemed like it was something pure. What wasn’t easy was learning how to live in the world, with all of its judgments. Those judgments managed to make their way into my body. It was like swimming in a storm at sea. Any minute, you could drown. At least it felt like that. One minute the sea was calm. And then there was a storm. And the problem, with me, anyway, was that the storm lived inside me."

“People were complicated. I was complicated. Dante, he was complicated, too. People—they were included in the mysteries of the universe. What mattered is that he was an original. That he was beautiful and human and real and I loved him—and I didn’t think anything would ever change that.”

“Your loneliness made me sad, Ari. And there’s something about you. I mean, people are like countries, and me and Gina, and your friend Dante, we’re all countries—and maybe you’ve given your friend Dante a visa. But even if you have, that’s just one person. And one person isn’t enough. Having friends is like traveling. Gina and I have offered you a visa to travel to our countries whenever you want. So, Ari, when are you going to give us a visa? We want so much to visit you. We want so much for you to show us around your beautiful country.” And she was crying again.”

“Let’s map out the year, Dante. Let’s write our names and chart out some paths. And go see what we have never seen. And be what we have never been.”

“You know, we not only have to be smart enough to be cartographers—we also have to be brave enough to dive into waters that may not be very friendly.”

“But the problem was that love was never safe. Love took you to places you had always been afraid to go. What the hell did I know about love? Sometimes, when I was in Dante’s presence, I felt that I knew everything there was to know about love. But, for me, to love was one thing. To let yourself be loved, well, that was the most difficult thing of all.”

“And all of this is because you looked at me one day at a swimming pool and said to yourself, I bet I can teach this guy how to swim. You saw me and I wasn’t invisible anymore. You taught me how to swim. And I didn’t have to be afraid of the water anymore. And you gave me enough words to rename the universe I lived in.”

“I was also learning that loving someone was different from falling in love with them."

[14/02/21] i will also dive into the waters of the world if october can come tomorrow.

i will literally sacrifice my whole family to get a release date for this book. i need it now.