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A lovely, sweet, sometimes very funny, sometimes heartbreaking (but mostly heartwarming) YA about two misfit Mexican-American boys living in El Paso in the 1980s. The prose and rhythms are very beautiful, which is unsurprising as the author is also a poet. It's as much a story about family as it is the relationship between the boys, and touches on a bunch of social issues while staying distinctly about two specific boys and their families, who deal with stuff as a part of their lives, rather than being a book about issues. I loved it.
I went in knowing it had some gay content but not recalling whether it was a romance, or a story about a platonic friendship between a gay boy and a straight boy, and consequently was in suspense for quite some time. Also, Ari's brother is in prison and his family won't tell him why. As a result of all that, I developed a Theory of Everything that turned out to be totally wrong, and I'm glad because I didn't like my theory. If you'd like some spoilers, read on. I don't think it's a book where being in suspense is necessary. The cut also describes some content-warning type stuff you might want to know about in advance.
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Audiobook read by Lin-Manuel Miranda. I highly recommend the audio version - he does a great job and is the perfect person to read it. His soulful, wholehearted, often very funny delivery is just right. Also he can pronounce all the Spanish.
You'd think correct pronunciation would be a prerequisite for a reading of anything but I recently had to give up on an audiobook of The Hare With The Golden Eyes, about a netsuke collection, read by a guy who couldn't pronounce netsuke. Not to mention the audiobook of my own Stranger, which is excellent except that it has two narrators who did not consult on pronunciation with the result that they pronounced many names differently including the name of the town in which all the characters lived.
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
I went in knowing it had some gay content but not recalling whether it was a romance, or a story about a platonic friendship between a gay boy and a straight boy, and consequently was in suspense for quite some time. Also, Ari's brother is in prison and his family won't tell him why. As a result of all that, I developed a Theory of Everything that turned out to be totally wrong, and I'm glad because I didn't like my theory. If you'd like some spoilers, read on. I don't think it's a book where being in suspense is necessary. The cut also describes some content-warning type stuff you might want to know about in advance.
( Read more... )
Audiobook read by Lin-Manuel Miranda. I highly recommend the audio version - he does a great job and is the perfect person to read it. His soulful, wholehearted, often very funny delivery is just right. Also he can pronounce all the Spanish.
You'd think correct pronunciation would be a prerequisite for a reading of anything but I recently had to give up on an audiobook of The Hare With The Golden Eyes, about a netsuke collection, read by a guy who couldn't pronounce netsuke. Not to mention the audiobook of my own Stranger, which is excellent except that it has two narrators who did not consult on pronunciation with the result that they pronounced many names differently including the name of the town in which all the characters lived.
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
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