Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

From the hardcover:
   Dante can swim. Ari can't. Dante is articulate and self-assured. Ari has a hard time with words and suffers from self-doubt. Dante gets lost in poetry and art. Ari gets lost in thoughts of his older brother who is in prison. Dante is fair skinned. Ari's features are much darker. It seems that a boy like Dante, with his open and unique perspective on life, would be the last person to break down the walls and that Ari has built around himself.
   But when Ari and Dante meet, they bond. They share books, thoughts, dreams, laughter. They teach each other new vocabularies and begin to redefine each other's worlds. And they discover that the universe is a large and difficult place.
   This is the story about two boys, Ari and Dante, who must learn to believe in each other and the power of their friendship if they ever are to become men.
   In breathtaking prose, American Book Award winner Benjamin Alire Sáenz captures those moments that make a boy a man as he explores loyalty and trust, friendship and love.

 
   Two boys who are not "normal" meet by chance one summer day. One is sad and withdrawn, the other is sociable but weird in the eyes of his peers They become best friends and help bring out the best in each other in this fantastic book. Ari never felt like he fit in (the above quote is an Ari thought) he just din't know how to act around people. Dante was strange in his own way but never pressures Ari to be something particular. He didn't expect him to be a certain way so Ari is able to be less guarded, more himself. And a beautiful friendship begins.
   For me, this is just one of those books that hit so hard. I think the first time I read this (almost two years ago) I did so in one sitting. After I finished, I read it again starting the next day. I devoured it slower the second time, really letting everything sink in, discovering new bits of information. I told my best friend about it and said I had to buy a hardcover copy for myself. (I borrowed it from the library to assess it before purchasing.) Next thing I know she bought me a copy (such was my gushing about it.) When she gave it to me, I told her she had to borrow it first, because I knew she'd love it too. I also sent a copy, all my favorite parts marked with post-it notes, to a friend for Christmas.
   It's a little difficult for me to put my finger on exactly what about this book spoke to me. It is beautifully written, but I think more than anything it was Ari. Dante had his moments too, and their parents, oh how I loved their parents. I'm hard pressed to find anything bad about this book, I may have rose colored lenses on though, but that's what happens when you fall as hard as I did. If you are not one of the people I have basically forced to read this book, you should read it, chances are, you won't regret it.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

From the Hardcover:
   The year is 1969. In the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India, fraternal twins Esthappen and Rahel fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family. Their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu, (who loves by night the man her children love by day), fled an abusive marriage to live with their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), and their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt).
  When Chacko's English ex-wife brings their daughter for a Christmas visit, the twins learn that Things Can Change in a Day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever, beside their river...

"The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don't deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don't surprise you with the unforseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover's skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don't. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won't. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn't. And yet you want to know again."

   The God of Small Things made its way around numerous book lists a few years ago and it sounded interesting. I got more than I thought I would from it. It is beautifully written, I fell in love with the sentences. The story took a little getting into, it jumps seamlessly in time. After I became used to the style I was able to concentrate on Rahel and the memories she was sharing. This book has politics, forbidden love, and family drama.
   I also learned a little about the caste system in India that I was somehow ignorant of before reading this book. I love a book that introduces me to new things.
   I'd recommend this book to someone who loves the feel of words, much like Winter's Tale, but this book is less of a time commitment at 321 pages compared to Winter's Tale's 768.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

From the paperback:
   A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse where she once lived, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.
   A groundbreaking work as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out.

   Neil Gaiman has done it again! Captured my attention with a book I didn't want to put down. He writes so beautifully. He weaves a world where names hold power (we never learn the narrator's name) and some things just can't be explained or understood.
   The narrator is a child who has no friends. He escapes in books and stories as much has he can. He meets the Hempstock women after a startling discovery and his world continues to be rocked for the next few days. The Hempstocks aren't witches per-say, they're something else, something more. Something (Old Mrs. Hempstock calls it a "flea") hitches a ride back inside our hero and after he tries to remove it without knowing the full extent of what he does, a new nanny comes to care for him and his sister. Ursula Monkton, who everyone, but our hero, loves. He knows that the Hempstock women can help him get rid of her, if only he can get away.
   If it sounds like a lot of "somethings" are in my description of this book, it's because most of it can only be understood by reading the book. The beings described in The Ocean at the End of the Lane could be monsters but it depends on your definition of the word.
    This is a fantastic book for readers of all ages. I'd recommend it to anyone who has a love of fantasy. Or anyone who just loves to read. The narrator is easy to care for and identify with for lovers of the written word,

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

From Goodreads.com:
"Days before his release from prison, Shadow's wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash. Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America.
  Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.
  Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, American Gods takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You'll be surprised by what and who it finds there..."

"Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end."

This is the first book by Neil Gaiman I ever read. I must admit I became an instant fan. American Gods is said to be a road trip for Shadow after three years in prison. It is that, however it is so much more. It's a tale of gods; old gods, new gods, and many forgotten gods, totems, legends and idols. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but it had my full attention immediately. The synopsis did not prepare me for the book that followed. I was thrown into a world that I had no idea existed, where places of power are tourist attractions. I got brief glimpses of gods and idols I have never heard of.
  I'd give this book a chance if you like Stephen King and have yet to discover Neil Gaiman.

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

From the paperback:
 A gorgeous novel by the celebrated author of When the Emperor Was Divine that tells the story of a group of young women brought from Japan to San Francisco as "picture brides" nearly a century ago.
   In eight unforgettable sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces the extraordinary lives of these women, from their arduous journey by boat, to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives: from their experience raising children who would later reject their culture and language, to the deracinating arrival of war. Once again, Julie Otsuka has written a spellbinding novel about identity and loyalty, and what it means to be an American in uncertain times.

"We forgot about Buddha. We forgot about God. We developed a coldness inside us that still has not thawed. I fear my soul has died. We stopped writing home to our mothers. We lost weight and grew thin. We stopped bleeding. We stopped dreaming. We stopped wanting."

The Buddha in the Attic is different from nearly everything I've read. Almost the entire book is told in first person plural (my first experience with this) really making it feel like an entire people were dealing with the same but different situation (which they were.) Sentences scattered throughout were italicized and in the first person, which felt to me that it was taken directly from a journal entry from one of the many women depicted. Since it was told from this viewpoint I didn't get the strong connection to a character I usually develop, instead I felt for a whole group of women, making it both easier and harder at the same time.
   This book is written so elegantly it almost felt like poetry. Beautiful yet concise, not mincing or wasting words, it tells of a time in America that shouldn't be forgotten.
   You do not have to love beautiful writing to enjoy this book, but if you do, read on. This is a shorter book so I also recommend it if you don't have much time to devote to reading.