"Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer morning could end in a downpour. Could end in lightning and thunder."
Content:
Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison.
Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the
two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the
loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special
friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through
this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about
themselves and the kind of people they want to be.
Cover:
The cover is absolutely gorgeous. The way it is
designed fits the story really well, and of course the best thing about it is Ari’s
red truck, which plays an important role in the whole book.
My opinion:
I mainly picked this book because it got a lot of hype
in the booktube community, and it seemed like I was the only one who hasn’t
read it yet. But I am so glad that I finally was able to pick this book up,
because it was fantastic.
Let me start off with Benjamin’s writing. Whilst at some
points a lot of sentences look pretty “basic” (if I may say so), at other
points the style, how Benjamin puts words together takes your breath away. There
are so many beautiful and deep quotes all around in this book, that sometimes I
just had to read a certain sentence many times in order to understand it
properly and I just had to take a minute to let some quotes sink in. The
writing-style was very poetic, and I absolutely loved it!
You could say that this book doesn’t really have a “plot”
in that sense, because it definitely focuses more on characters and their
development, but in this case that was completely fine with me. I loved ALL of
the characters (except some side-characters, but they don’t really contribute
anything great to the story, so I will ignore them). Let’s start with the
family aspect of this book. I have never seen such a great, honest and detailed
description about family and parents in any YA novel as in this one. Usually parents
are some kind of “trouble-makers” in YA novels, or just side-characters, or not
even really there at all. But in this novel the importance of family and
parents is really great depicted. Ari’s and Dante’s parents were all so honest
that they felt like real people. This book teaches us, that even adult make
mistakes, that they aren’t flawless, and that even they can admit that they
have done things wrong in the past. Whilst Ari’s parents were really closed up
and quiet at the beginning of the book, you see the relationship between them
grow over the course of the book, and in the end they just all grew closer
together even more.
But now let’s continue with Ari and Dante. Their friendship
is something really special. I have never seen such a great friendship (development)
in any book I’ve ever read. It almost feels like, that hadn’t even lived until
they met each other. It was beautiful to see them connect and grow a special
bond between each other which can’t be really torn apart by anyone.
The ending is my absolute favorite part of the whole book. It makes you sit there and just smile and cry tears of happiness. It is honestly one of my favorite endings ever. It couldn't have been better.
Conclusion:
This book teaches us to be true to ourselves, and even
if we think we didn’t find our personality or ourselves yet, the answer may
just lay ahead. Always be open for new things, and love yourself. Even if it
looks like it’s useless, after rain there is always sunshine! A beautiful read
which I recommend to everyone.
Rating:
5 | 5 stars
★ -★ -★ -★ -★
