Reviews tagging 'Lesbophobia'
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
19 reviews
viselik's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, War, and Violence
Moderate: Sexual violence, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Murder, Transphobia, Alcohol, and Drug use
Minor: Sexual content
redheadorganist's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Alcohol, Blood, and Grief
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Lesbophobia, Outing, Pregnancy, Transphobia, War, Animal death, Death, Homophobia, and Sexual content
marlenereads's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Thus, Aristotle and Dante definitely made me think and feel quite a lot. Here too, I somehow feel pathetic because I guess that's exactly what the author wanted to achieve. But I have to admit: it worked. I certainly experienced a wide range of emotions, from feeling seen to being angry to being shocked to feeling touched to being annoyed to smiling at the pages in front of me. And at all times there was a certain dullness, a thing lingering in the air.
I'm not sure if it is that thing that was resolved on the last, very last page(s), I don't know if I want it to be. Because I feel like it would make everything that is so deep and entangled and there in this book unauthentically simple. But also ... it wouldn't. And even if it kind of seems like this in the end, I think it might be exactly what the story needed. These last to pages, this last sentence - I was just happy. Okay, maybe not just. But quite a lot.
Moderate: War, Hate crime, Homophobia, Alcohol, Blood, Drug use, Bullying, Car accident, Cursing, and Violence
Minor: Lesbophobia, Murder, Transphobia, Medical content, and Death
elizlizabeth's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
I feel like the author has some shit to unpack because afaik he 's part of both the communities portrayed in the book (mexican-american and gay), but the whole thing is plagued with cliches and stereotypes of what it means to be either and both. I don't usually get upset when I see my culture written slightly off because at least it might come from a place of either ignorant admiration, or outright malice. For this book though, I feel like Alire-Saenz is coming from a place that's trying to be admiring and respectful but because of whatever issues ends up projecting hatred and malice.
See, it's hard to tell if he's celebrating being of mexican descent because he's constantly using the "rapist, violent, gang-member, drug addict, macho" stereotype to both make a joke or advance the plot; most of those are completely unnecessary and (at least for me) not funny at all. And don't even get me started on the sexist jokes.
I also can't tell if the author's celebrating being gay and in love because bad things keep happening to people in the plot just because they're gay. Which is I understand, a reality for many of us, but the way it's handled here is clumsy if not malintentioned. Gayness it's used not as self-discovery but as a curse and a source of drama to keep the stakes high with no resolution. Not to mention that if I wanted to really rock the boat, I could make a case of how this whole book was queer-baiting and not LGBTQA+ rep because
Spoiler
Aristotle doesn't even get together with Dante until the last few pages (like the last 10 pages y'all), even though this is marketed as a gay coming-of-age or whatever. Well come out and come of age then, why don't you?!?Very dissapointed by the conclusion of the book too, as the premise was that Ari was searching for the "secret" that would reveal what's "wrong" with him, and somehow he finds out that what was wrong with him was that he was gay. Sure, that's a healthy message.
Even if I were to ignore all of the above, the writing is objectively bad, dwelling on platitudes to land some quotable moments. I honestly felt that the characters were cut short from being fully distinct and even contradict themselves because the author wanted to keep them a blank canvas to make the reader project onto them. Recommend it to your toxic gay friends to make them worse, y'all.
Graphic: Racism, Drug use, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Medical trauma, Outing, and Hate crime
One mexican-american character gets described as a "hungry coyote". Use of other negative stereotypes to mexicans are recurrent throughout (ie. they join gangs, they are obsessed with their cars, they know how to hotwire cars because they're mexican, etc)Spoiler
An act in which someone hits someone from the LGBT+ community to death is mentioned.One of the characters gets outed while unconscious and without his knowledge. This is not discussed later, but it's implied that the outed character is not upset for it.
yohhhanna's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Moderate: Grief, Homophobia, Drug use, Alcohol, and Car accident
Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Lesbophobia
matheo's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Car accident, Hate crime, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Lesbophobia, Grief, Death, Homophobia, Racism, Violence, War, Body horror, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Animal death, Blood, and Murder
Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Drug use
lacey_wi's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Cursing, Bullying, Homophobia, Hate crime, Lesbophobia, Drug use, War, Car accident, Medical trauma, and Death
Moderate: Transphobia
sam_rami's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
THIS BOOK!!! I loved it, it was def a coming of age novel and was totally an amazing read. I cannot wait to buy the sequel and read it immediately!! The characters were likeable and you feel empathy for what they're dealing with. Ari definitely sorta had a personality similar to Holden from CITR. It was just amazing!! (I'm reading it for school so it kinda has to be on my mind) I just liked them together and I wished that there was a dual pov so we can see what Dante thought as well. But it was amazing nonetheless.
Graphic: Hate crime, Medical content, Medical trauma, Car accident, and Homophobia
Moderate: Transphobia, Lesbophobia, Murder, and Alcohol
reddeddy's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Drug use, Homophobia, Hate crime, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Alcohol, Biphobia, Car accident, and Cursing
Moderate: Blood, Death, Grief, Mental illness, Murder, Outing, Sexual content, Bullying, and Panic attacks/disorders
Minor: Abandonment, Chronic illness, Dysphoria, Lesbophobia, Terminal illness, and Transphobia
the_embodiment_of_chaos's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Alcohol, Hate crime, Transphobia, Medical content, Violence, Homophobia, Car accident, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Drug use and Transphobia
Minor: Lesbophobia, Sexism, and Cancer