Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World

4.5 stars!
Loved 95% of it, kinda derailed at the very end and then ended well.

Favourite part was the friendship and the girls. The girls were the best part

Maybe it was because I listened to this book rather than read it and that makes the teenage affect much heavier, or maybe Lin Manuel-Miranda's voice reading teen boys in love broke my suspension of disbelief, but this book's writing felt heavy on the cheese and sentimentality and light on plot. I don't remember feeling that way about the initial book, which I really loved. The sequel has its moments – the author has a poetic style that frequently resolves in great lines, the incorporation of the AIDS pandemic and the stakes of queerness in this world being high, and the characterization of the parents especially is multilayered. (It's rare to get a YA book where parents are people too, and even good people central to the book.) Often I felt like this book walked in circles; I felt unconvinced at certain plot points.

Other reviews have correctly pointed out that the plot point of transphobia in the first book was not resolved or addressed in the second. In hindsight there's no reason why Ari's brother's crime had to use a trans woman as a victim when the books do not deal with broader trans representation or issues in any way.

Não tenho muitos motivos objetivos pra explicar minha decepção, só que o primeiro livro me tocou muito e esse me pareceu mais... genérico?
O primeiro ato parece correr pra transformar o setup do fim do primeiro livro num drama adolescente qualquer de um grupo de amigos na escola. A prosa também é desnecessária e inexplicavelmente repetitiva em alguns momentos, tanto em temática quanto em texto.
Ainda assim, gosto da psique de Ari e ser acompanhado por ele mais um tempo foi bom. O ponto de virada do último terço também deixou a história mais intimista de um jeito que me agradou, e ter esquecido dele por um mês também ajudou a voltar mais fresco pra história.
Enfim, 3 estrelas, difícil explicar.