Rating: 3.5/5 
 ***Minor spoilers*** 
 Aristotle "Ari" Mendoza doesn't really have any friends. He's content going through high school without any friends to hang out with, until he meets Dante. Ari is at the swimming pool even though he doesn't know how to swim, and a boy named Dante comes up to him and tells Ari that he'd teach him how to swim. They become fast friends, and soon hang out almost every day. This novel tells the progression of their friendship through its ups and downs and how it changed them as a person. 
 I've had my eye on this one for a while and it didn't disappoint. It didn't have too much of a plot, and people who don't particularly enjoy character-driven novels have criticized this. For me, I usually value the characters more than the plot, which is why I didn't mind much at all that this novel wasn't addressing some sort of main conflict. It felt quite natural in the way it was written and it was written in a way that was very easy to read. Ari and Dante were both great characters, but personally I liked Dante more. The way he expresses himself just intrigues me more than Ari's character. 
 My two biggest criticisms for this book are that it doesn't feel particularly realistic, and things slowed down too much in the middle of the book. As for my first point, I'm currently around the age that both Ari and Dante were in this book. I can't exactly speak to how mature or informed teenagers were in the 80's, nor am I male, but it seemed like they were just too innocent for their age. In my eyes they felt more like 13/14 rather than 16 going on 17 but again, teens would've been a lot more uninformed since they weren't exactly able to Google everything they were curious about, so this one was forgivable. What was most disappointing was that there was a point in the book where Dante goes away for a bit, and it began to drag at that point. With Dante being my favourite character, not having him or his parents in the picture made the whole book more boring until he returned. 
 Overall, aside from those criticisms, I thought this was a great book. It told the story of two boys coming into themselves and learning more about their parents, themselves, and life in general through their friendship. It was a touching story and had me tearing up for parts of it, and the ending was super satisfying. I'd definitely recommend this if you're looking for an easy to read, feel-good novel.