It's not like Ari has a hard life as a teenager growing up in El Paso in the late eighties. He has a semi-aloof father whose experiences during the Vietnam War have left him caring but distant. His mother is a loving but strict authority figure and the ghost of Ari's imprisoned older brother hangs over the house. He's somewhat withdrawn and doesn't have any friends. Pretty typical really. 
 And then he meets fellow teenage weirdo Dante, a strange spark of brilliant light in Ari's otherwise dim world. 
 The great thing about this book is that I think almost everyone can relate to Ari or Dante or both. They don't have hard lives really, but they have lives that you can empathise with. We've all been through that teenage period where we're still discovering who we are and who we're going to be, wondering how on earth we're supposed to fit into this world. We all have families that have secrets, parents who we want to hold down and scream "What is going on? Who the Hell am I supposed to be?" 
 'Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe' show us that we all have demons, we all have battles we need to fight, even our parents. As teenagers with the added weight of being forced to go through the awkward journey from child to adult we feel even more overwhelmed and confused by burgeoning emotions. We all have nightmares. We're scared of something. But we don't have to deal with it all alone. 
 This book was sad, funny, simultaneously heart-breaking and heart-warming and infinitely readable. It reminded me of my own teenage years and the relationship I had with my parents. I enjoyed the fact that Ari has a relatively normal family (with some exceptions), it highlights that what he goes through is perfectly normal. 
 It was one of those books I couldn't stop reading, but I really tried because I knew that once it was over, I'd have to say goodbye to Ari and Dante. 
 I'm not really into writing reviews, but I felt like I needed an outlet for how much I enjoyed reading this fantastic story.