Ari is a loner with many questions about his family. He has a much older brother who went to jail when Ari was four. He doesn't know why and his family refuses to talk about it. Ari's father is a Vietnam veteran struggling with PTSD who is having difficulty communicating with his family.
Dante is the extroverted only child of expressive and loving parents. He loves poetry. He offers to teach Ari to swim when they meet at a public pool. Over the summer they become friends and then very gradually start to realize that they may be falling in love.
This is the story of Ari and Dante's lives through one summer, the school year, and the next summer. There are everyday milestones like getting a driver's license and having your first job in addition to larger issues.
- How do you stand up to your parents so they start to see you as an adult?
- How do you deal with unrequited love?
- How do you most effectively face homophobia, including violence?
- How do you learn to let yourself learn to feel and act on your emotions?
- How do you deal with being too American for your Mexican relatives and too Mexican for other Americans?
Lin-Manuel Miranda reads the audiobook and does a very good job. (There is a nice moment when Ari complains about learning about Alexander Hamilton that gets a bit meta when you hear Lin-Manuel Miranda read it.) This book is a bit slow on audio for my tastes. In fact I set it aside for a few months after about the first hour. I'm glad I came back to it because the story picked up but this is one that might be better in print form if you like a lot of action in your audiobooks.
In whatever format you decide this is a great book for everyone to read.This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story