This is not, as you may at first suspect, a trippy romp as the philosopher Aristotle and the poet Dante trek across the galaxy in a weird adventure, though I’d read the hell out of that book. It is instead a melancholy coming of age tale of two Mexican American boys in 1987 El Paso. The book is about the two of them finding their identity as friends and as individuals and, of course, as Mexican Americans. It also becomes, as the book unfolds, a story about Dante’s struggle to come to terms with his gay identity. I suppose the thing that separates this book a bit from the pack is its blend. We’ve all read stories about coming to terms with your sexuality and about your ethnicity, but this book kind of tries to get at both of those things and the collision of Mexican American culture and gay identity is a new one, I suppose. Unfortunately, the book is more than a little predictable; it’s pretty well by the numbers through and through. One of the only unique things about the book is the treatment of the parents of our main characters; both sets of them are EXTREMELY tolerant, especially for the late eighties. So the book is romanticized; no crime in that if it’s also honest about it and it is. And Saenz has found a really authentic voice in Aristotle, who narrates the book. This is both kind of a blessing and a curse. The conversations between Aristotle and Dante feel very real, which is good, but a big part of Ari’s character is that he isn’t much of a communicator, so the book is almost entirely told in a very clipped, blunt style that just isn’t that interesting to read. There are good things here certainly and the book isn’t every really that bad, but it’s pretty typical really and unremarkable. 2 ½ stars.
tl;dr – melancholy treatment of coming of age as both gay and Mexican-American has some good things and isn’t ever really bad, but it’s certainly predictable and unremarkable. 2 ½ stars.