psocoptera

Aristotle and Dante Dive Into the Waters of the World, Benjamin Alire Sáenz. Behind cut for major spoilers. There was so much queer tragedy in the first half of this book (the classmate's brother who dies of AIDS, the gallery owner whose son had died of AIDS, the kid who was getting gaybashed who dies of something relating to drugs) that I was honestly relieved when the Something Bad That Was Obviously Going To Happen turned out to be Ari's dad dying. I mean, it was hard and sad, but it was ordinary life tragedy, not *queer* tragedy, which I realized partway into the book that I was not really up for for these characters at this time. And in fact there were some satisfying queer moments in the end (the classmate who gets to come out, Ari getting to meet an actual gay elder), so I was glad for that. I don't think overall it's as strong a book as the first one, but there were some bits I loved, and I did some crying (inevitably! on the playground! I swear I read at other times/places!), so, pretty satisfying sequel all told.

(It was also interesting to see how the choices Sáenz made were different than the ones I made when I wrote fic, about their college trajectories and odds of staying together, or the treatment of Bernardo. I maybe sort of want to write getting-back-together-after-college fic now? But probably won't?)