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I just finished reading this book for the third time, and god damn I just love this book so much. The first time I read this was seven years ago, and I've been wanting to reread it for so long and I finally did. I had forgotten that this book takes place in the 80's and I forgot just how much I adore Dante and his family. Aristotle is an incredibly relatable character for me: when I was 15 I struggled with my identity and I also felt angry and depressed all the time and I could never really figure out why. I also love his sense of humor, he's hilarious in this book. I love how fleshed out Aristotle and Dante's parents and families are - they all felt so vivid and real. Dante is such a warm and positive person and I just adore him so much. Ughhhh this book is so cute and the writing is so lyrical and beautiful. This helped me get out of my reading slump again, which is great! I didn't remember how heavy and dark and sad this book could get at times and it had me crying in the middle of the day. Ah, so amazing. I really hope there is a sequel because I need more Aristotle and Dante in my life.


ORIGINAL REVIEW:
One of the secrets of the universe was that our instincts were sometimes stronger than our minds.
Wow, I didn't expect much from this book when I started reading it, but I instantly fell in love with the writing style. The writing is so beautiful. I finished this book in one day because I couldn't put it down and I couldn't get enough of this writing. This book made me laugh and cry and it's such a breath of fresh air. I've been in a reading slump lately, and I haven't been able to get through a contemporary without getting bored lately, but this book made me realize why I love contemporaries. This book reminded me why I love reading so much in the first place. This book dives deep into the meaning of family, friendship, and life itself. It was beautiful to watch these two characters discover who they are, and really live their lives for the very first time. Not only were the main characters Aristotle and Dante very well developed, but all of the side characters like their parents and their friends were also very well developed, and I felt something for each of them.

Aristotle was an extremely relatable character. I feel like I was very similar to his character when I was 15. I was confused and sad and angry, and I do think that that's just a part of growing up. I especially related to the way Ari constantly says he feels alone. Like in this quote he says, "In a strange way, my friendship with Dante had made me feel even more alone. Maybe it was because Dante seemed to make himself fit everywhere he went. And me, I always felt that I didn't belong anywhere." I completely get where he's coming from, how sometimes, even close friendships make you feel alone and like an outcast. Also when he says "I had a rule that it was better to be bored by yourself than to be bored with someone else. Maybe that's why I didn't have any friends." I relate to this completely and I kind of live by that rule as well, even if I didn't realize it till now. I'd rather be busy than bored, but being busy doesn't make you happy.

This book also made me laugh so many times! Like when Ari says "I wasn't wildly popular. How could I be? In order to be wildly popular you had to make people believe that you were fun and interesting. I just wasn't that much of a con artist." That's so true! I couldn't stop laughing. Also, when Ari tells his Dad that he doesn't want to go back to the boy scouts, and he says "If you make me go back I swear I'll start smoking pot" I was dying of laughter. Ari had a hilarious personality and I absolutely loved reading this book from his perspective. I felt so bad for his family and all that they had to deal with with his brother and his Dad going to war, it was heartbreaking.

With beautiful quotes like "If summer was a book then I was going to write something beautiful in it," and "Somehow I'd hoped that this would be the summer that I would discover that I was alive. the world my mom and dad said was out there waiting for me. That world doesn't actually exist," and also this beautiful quote about dreams, "I have this idea that the reason we have dreams is that we're thinking about things we don't know we're thinking about-and those things, well, they sneak out of us in our dreams. Maybe we're like tires with too much air in them. The air has to leak out. That's what dreams are." This book was so lyrical and beautiful, and I could go on and on with quotes that I highlighted. The beautiful quotes made me stop reading for a second and made me think about life and question things and isn't that what we want from reading anyway? To get something out of it, and make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside? That's exactly what this book did for me.

If I had to sum up this book with only a few words, they would be: rain, dreams, sad, shoes, birds, life, boys, anger, summer, and family. I really loved this book. It's one of my all time favorites now.

"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."