Hello and happy Saturday. I’m in a great mood despite having woken up at around 4am and getting bloodwork done at like 8am. Regardless, I have to give a somewhat bad review and not even my mood can change that. I really got into the bookish world ten years ago, with Eleanor & Park and Boy Meets Boy and the like. Around that time I read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz, which is a treasure and was life-changing.

I don’t know when the sequel to that book, which is the one I’m reviewing now, was released, but I’m sure of two things: a long time passed between the first and the second installment, and the sequel was 100% fan service. I could’ve done without it. I could’ve done without finding out what happened to Aristotle and Dante after the original novel was over. I was done with their story.

What drove me to read this book? Nostalgia, pure nostalgia. It also helped that I was listening to the audiobook, which was narrated by Lin Manuel Miranda. Had I been reading it with my eyes, I’m not sure what my experience would have been. Good thing I don’t have to find out.