I held off on blogging about this book because it was my favorite and one of the reasons I think I loved it so much was that I got to discover everything along with the characters. Not knowing what would happen made the experience of reading this book so much richer than I think it would have been if I'd seen a summary beforehand or if someone told me "you will love this book because ______."
So. If you have not yet read this book, please do not continue reading this blog. Just go read the book. You will love it because______. (If you don't love it, you can leave a comment below, but I still think your life will be better for having read it.)
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So since you've all now read the book, I will skip a summary. Several things about this book were wonderful: the writing style and atmosphere, getting to see through the eyes of a thoughtful 15-year-old Mexican American boy, getting to see how each of the boys feels connected or disconnected from his heritage, the strong emotions the story elicits, the descriptions of the desert (an environment I am drawn to), and all of Aristotle's astute observations about himself and others. I loved the fact that he questions everything and actually thinks deeply about his surroundings. I wondered if this is a rare quality among teen boys (and girls) or if they all do it, often without seeming to.
But really what I most connected to was that the whole book is Ari's coming out story. Having come
out as gay myself, I know that this experience is one that is unique to each person and isn't a single event, but a bunch of different seemingly unrelated ones - maybe even some false starts and backtracks - that can span a great deal of time. I think Ari might question more than the average heterosexual teen because he is also questioning deep parts of himself. Although all teens must go through a search for self, I know that the journey is a little harder for one that is or might be or will be gay. Though my coming out story is very different from Ari's, the story still rang true for me. More than that, it was familiar and .... lovely. Anyone who has come to realize that he/she is gay will relate to this passage - and anyone who is questioning his/her sexuality may find direction through it:"All this time. This was what was wrong with me. All this time I had been trying to figure out the secrets of the universe, the secrets of my own body, of my own heart. All of the answers had always been so close and yet I had always fought them without even knowing it. From the minute I'd met Dante, I had fallen in love with him. I just didn't let myself know it, think it, feel it." (358)
It's that part about not letting yourself know it that you start to beat yourself up over. It's comforting to know that a lot of others go through the same thing. It wasn't until after I came out that I started searching for and finding more mirrors in books, movies, and TV shows. In high school, all I had was Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and thank goodness for Joss Whedon). Lesbian was still a bit of a dirty word, even in Madison. I can only imagine what good it would have done for me to read this book at 15. I can't really let go of my inner confused gay teen at this point to think about how straight teens will take to this book, but I want to believe that exposure to a story like this would help them understand some of their peers or put themselves in the shoes of gay adults they encounter. Besides, there are enough stories about straight kids for them. Let there be gay books too!
Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
ReplyDeleteThat is all. :)