minute I received an email from NetGalley promoting Benjamin Alire Sáenz's new book, I jumped on it and submitted a request for an advance copy.
I absolutely loved Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe sitelinksee my review, so I figured even if this one wasn't that good, I still had to read it.
Needless to say, I was so pleased to get approved right away, and I began the book the second I finished my previous one.
The Inexplicable Logic of My Life is a different book than Aristotle and Dante.
. . , but man, was it special, I have a hellacious cold, making sleeping and breathing, really fairly impossible in my current state, so last night I read nearly the entire book, between:p.
m. and:a. m. Needless to say, this is how I ended up:
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Sal is ready to start his senior year of high school.
It's going to be a pivotal year with so much on the horizon, but while his childhood best friend Samantha can think of nothing more than going to college as far away from El Paso as she can no matter what her mother says, he's getting more and more stressed about the potential for change.
Suddenly this anxiety is manifesting itself via angerall he wants to do is hit people, Whether it's the idiot who called his father
a faggot, someone who called him a pinche gringo even though he is white, he was adopted by his Mexican father, or one of Sam's badguy boyfriends, he suddenly can't stop using his fists, and he doesn't understand why, and he is afraid of how people will react if they knew how angry he was.
"But Sam, she had this image of me that I was a good boy, and she was in love with that image.
She was in love with simple, uncomplicated, levelheaded Sally, And I didn't know how to tell her that I wasn't all those beautiful things she thought I was.
That things were changing, and I could feel it but couldn't put it into words, "
Sadly, life throws them curve after curve in this crucial year, and Sal must deal with some major emotional crises, and come to terms with who he is, and what becoming a man really means.
But at the same time, he realizes once again the power of friendship and family, of words, of loving and being loved, and of giving people a chance.
This is a beautiful, emotional, heartwarming, and lifeaffirming book, and although there was perhaps a little too much melodrama to deal with in the plot, I applaud Sáenz for not taking the story down a few paths I feared he might.
One of the reasons I love Sáenz's writing so much is that he has such a love for his characters that you can't help loving them, too, and seeing them in your mind's eye.
This book ispages long yet I could have read more, although I might have gotten dehydrated from all of the crying! And not just sad crying, but good crying, too.
He uses beautiful imagery and creates some poetic moments, even if at times some friction would have been avoided if people just said what they felt.
But ultimately, this is one of those books that teaches you to let yourself be loved, and that no matter what your background or life situation is, you still are entitled to dream and believe in yourself.
I'll sit and wait for Sáenz's next book, readying for this again:
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NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's Book Group/Clarion Books provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review.
Thanks for making this available!
See all of my reviews at sitelink blo . Hi everyone. I was recently contacted over my review of this book, and I'd like you all to know what happened.
I received an email on Wednesday, by Sáenz about this review, He said that I had attacked his character by accusing him of handling rape badly, and that I had no right to do so, and that it was unfair.
He also mentioned how I had read the book wrong, This was so horribly wrong,
I was not the first person to mention the rape scene, I amyears old. The review has been out for about half a year, as I had gotten an ARC from HMH to review.
So, FYI I waswhen I wrote and posted the review, I had even contacted HMH about this book, but was dismissed, I will no longer be supporting Sáenz, and if you would like to read the email, I have screenshots on my twitter.
Him contacting me was not all right, and it should never happen to reviewers,
So. sitelinkCheck out my original review here if you want to see what Saenz was so upset about.
I would like to thank the people at Clarion/HMH Publishing for allowing me to have an ARC of this book.
DNF on page.
Read this and more reviews on sitelinkMY BLOG
Afterlong days of trying to get into this book I am finally DNF'ing it on page.
I've only DNF'dbooks this year this is myrth, so it was a hard decision, But, I struggled through it from the very beginning, so I just had to leave it, Every time I put it down I just didn't care at all to pick it back up,
It's not a bad book in any sense that's why it's not getting astar rating, it just didn't do anything for me.
I read one other book by Benjamin Saenz Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe and I really loved it.
Aristotle and Dante showed me reasons why I should give ya contemporary a chance, But The inexplicable Logic reminded me all of the reasons why I hate ya contemporaries,
Aristotle and Dante was aesthetically written, and it was the most quotable book I've ever read it was just beautiful.
The Inexplicable Logic was just a big mess of repetitive writing, with some pretty quotes sprinkled throughout.
It had such a promising premise! A boy who was adopted by gay father I thought it was incredibly different.
We always see kids struggling with their sexuality, and we don't often get to see kids dealing with their parent's sexuality.
It was supposed to be a coming of age story main character navigating through grief, loss and other confusing things like his father being gay.
I was so excited to read it! But in the end the amazing premise was just that, a premise.
It never translated into the story, Yes, all of those issues and elements were there, but they all fell flat, buried under heaps of unnecessary and useless chapters.
This story could have been everything, but sadly I got bored way before I could see it unfold.
Here are some reasons why this book didn't work out for me,
Repetition of things: almost every chapter ended on the same note every new chapter felt a little bit like the previous chapter, with same thoughts and same ideas on the loop.
It's like somebody forgot to switch the film and the same song kept playing, On repeat, repeat, repeat
The writing: this didn't really feel like a book, but more like a diary, and not an interesting one at that.
The writing was choppy, and abrupt and just weird at times it just felt very messy, like maybe a child wrote it.
The characters: I couldn't identify with any of the characters in this book, They all had so much potential, but they just never reached it I mean, maybe they did later on, but I couldn't wait anymore they felt flat and cliche to me.
And I just couldn't stand Sam at all, main's character best friend, A girl who cusses for no good reason and teases her best friend to no end Even though she had so much happen to her, and I knew that as a reader I was supposed to feel for her I just couldn't.
How sexual assault was handled, or to be more precise not handled at all.
Useless chapters: Some chapters were fully comprised of Sal main character and Sam texting.
Some of the conversations went like this:
Sal: I have a new word
Sam: What is it
Sal: Brave
Sam: Are you brave
Sal: no.
Sam: yes, you are,
Sal: lol
Sam: lol
now this is not an exact conversation from the book, but you get the idea.
I just couldn't take much of that anymore if I wanted to read useless messages between teenagers I'd go on Tumblr or something.
This book is overpages long, and I just don't see a reason why, I could only get throughand then I decided that I had enough I was so bored, The pace is so slow, and I normally love slowburning books, but something here just didn't click for me.
Pages were filled with useless things and repetitive subjects, meanwhile the plot was going nowhere,
If you love contemporaries, you might love this book, If you haven't read anything by Saenz, I'd recommend reading Aristotle and Dante instead of this that book had heart and soul, this book felt like it needed more work to have sustenance.
For me, I am done with ya contemporaries, so in a way I'm thankful for this book, because it reminded me exactly why I stayed away from them for so long.
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