book-pod

Welcome to our podcast. We are going to talk about books we read. So, Alba, tell me a little bit about your book. I chose the book Aristotle and Dante Discovered the Secrets of the Universe. I'm not going to spoil the whole book, but it's about two teens named Aristotle and Dante. Aristotle is usually called Ari for short. They are two American-Mexican teens. They are 15 years old and they are living in El Paso, Texas in 1987. It's a coming-of-age story about them and their friendship and how it evolves through the book, if you understand. So, Mari, what is your book about? It's about a 16-year-old girl who lives in Indiana. Her dad is dead and it affects her quite a lot. Basically, a billionaire goes missing and he is wanted by the police. It's about her and her best friend investigating this case. What is the name of your book? It's Turtles All the Way Down. I personally read the book Song of Achilles and it is about the old Greek times. The main character Patroclus falls in love with a half-god named Achilles. The book shows their love and their development throughout the years. They go to war together and it's a tragedy, but it's beautiful. What was your favorite part of the book? My book is not something big that happens. It's just a story. It's about two guys who grow up and it tells the story with them. Dante is in love with Ari from the very first moment they meet. But Ari doesn't really know how it feels to be in love, so he just looks at Dante as a friend. It's from Ari's point of view. During the book he discovers a lot about himself and maybe he starts to question his sexuality. It's not easy, especially not in that time period in the 80s. He also struggles with his racial identity or ethnicity. I'm kind of lost on the question, but I think my favorite part is at the end when they fall in love. Ari really struggles to show it, but at the end he finally understands his sexuality and his love for Dante. I can kind of relate with my book because it's also about two guys who fall in love. My favorite part was when the other one found out that they also liked the guy because the main character were in love the entire book. But he didn't find out until maybe two years later. The book goes on for 18 years, so a lot happens. What's your favorite part of your book? I think maybe the very end too, because basically this book is about her discovering herself and her journey to self-discovery and how she grows as a person. She's kind of a bad friend and a bad person, and at the very end she becomes a better person and a better friend and a better lover. Wow. Do we have any common traits in our book? I think that's in mine a huge theme in the book is love. It's what the book is based on, even though it has a lot of other factors. But do you also have love as a theme in your book? I don't think I would call my book a typical love story, because even though the two main characters fall in love, it doesn't happen really until the last three pages. But the main theme of my book is coming of age, and I think love is sort of included in that. For example, the platonic love between the friends and family love is also a really big topic. So I think even though it's not the main theme, it's like a red thread. Do you have any love in your story? Yeah, like romantically and family-wise, yeah. Like, because her dad's dead, so yeah, her mom really cares for her and tries to protect her. And she thinks it's kind of annoying, but in the end she understands. Like, when she got in a car crash, her mom just basically saved her and told her to go to therapy. And romantically, she has this love interest that's the son of the wanted billionaire, and it's very interesting how their dynamic is, because they're very similar but very different at the same time. And they live on the opposite side of town, like there's a river dividing the different parts of it, and he lives in the rich suburban part of it, and she's kind of more in the middle class part. So you also mentioned friendship, like platonic love, which I also have a lot of in my book, because in the war, which Patroclus and Nicholas is in, Patrolus saves a war slave, and they become best friends while they learn each other's languages, because she's Anatolian and he's Greek. And they, over the years, grow together and become best friends, and at the end Patrolus chooses her safety over Achilles' pride, because he was very stubborn in the end, but he wanted to save his best friend first, instead of his lover, which I found very beautiful, because platonic love can be stronger than romantic love sometimes, which is not particular in this book, but it can be. And yeah, so something else that was happening in my book was love at first sight, because Patroclus, he fell in love the first moment he saw Achilles. They were like down in love, because Patroclus had killed a man when he was 10, so he was exiled from his father's kingdom. So when he was taken in by Achilles' father, he had so much anger in himself, he had PTSD from the killing, and Achilles really helped him through that, and they became best friends, but Achilles' identity wasn't shown until four years later, when they were 16, when they finally got together, which, as I said, is a long period of time in the book. So it was six years later they actually came together, but they had been best friends for six years. But Patroclus was in love at first sight. Do you have any? Yeah, kind of, because my main character, she met her love interest at Sad Camp, which is a camp for kids who have a dead parent, because his mother is dead and died when he was very young. His name is Davis, and her name is Asa, my main character. And basically, after his dad disappeared, Daisy and Asa, which is the main character, they went to investigate the disappearance, because there's a $100 reward if you give them the police tips, and they came to his house and rang on the door, and Asa was really worried that he was not going to remember her, but he really remembered her, and it's clear that they both have had feelings for each other ever since the Sad Camp. I also have kind of love at first sight, because it's also from Dante, but the first time they met was in the middle of the summer vacation, where they both were at the public swimming pool, and Ari couldn't, he didn't know how to swim, he couldn't swim. And Dante saw that, and he just asked, like, do you want me to teach you how to swim? And then they, that's kind of like the start of their friendship, because they started with swimming lessons, and I think Dante was really, like, from the first moment, you can see, but you can read, that he is in love with Ari, from, I will say, the first sight. Since this is, like, gay love, in both our stories, it reminds me of, like, discrimination, is it a lot, is discrimination showed in your book, or is it just not? I think it's talked about much, for example, with the Mexican-American thing, it's not easy to grow up like that, especially in Texas, I think, it's hard. And also, there's one moment where Dante is, Dante works with a guy named Daniel at a burger shop, and they kind of have a thing going on, and then one night, Ari comes home, and he gets a phone call from Dante's father, who says that Dante is in the hospital, because he and Daniel was, like, around the corner, they were kissing, and a gang saw them, and Daniel ran, but Dante, like, stood in it, and he got beaten the shit out of. And he is in the hospital, and he has broken ribs, and his, like, bruised face and everything, and that's, like, a really extreme example, but it happens, like, of discrimination. Yeah, my story is, like, from 3,000 years before this, so it's kind of old, and it was kind of like, like, a man could be a lover with a man, but they couldn't be together, if you get what I mean. So they weren't actually, like, hated for the relationship, but they weren't very open with it, so they couldn't be, like, homophobic. But Achilles' mother, she was very against it. She was a goddess. Her name was Thetis, and she hated Patroclus. She tried to kill him many times, and made it a big deal that they were lovers, and, yeah, she wanted to get rid of him, so her son could be a success. And also, the king, a king that were in the war with them, he was so against it. He was so high on his pride, and he hated their relationship, and how they didn't have that much pride, because Achilles didn't want dead slaves. He had Patroclus, but when he offered a woman so he could sleep with, he said no, and Odomendon, the king, hated that. And since, like, the main focus on the book is a homosexual couple, there is discrimination, but it is not shown as much as there would be in real life. So I think it's kind of unrealistic, but it's not what the book is about. It's about love. It's not about how their love is perceived by others, which I think would have been a good add to it, if they had a little, like, realistically comments from others, because they didn't hide it very well. They were really bad at hiding it. But I think that's something I really loved about my book, with the parent thing coming out, you know? Because both Dante and Ari's parents were really supporting when they came up, and I really liked that. I love that part. And they lived in Texas. In my book, it was a lot of discrimination of women. They weren't allowed to lead, and they were sold as sex slaves, and when they were, like, 12 or 13, they were married away from older men. And I don't know, they weren't seen as valuable in my book, and it is very realistic, but I started crying when one of the slaves, the main character explained it very explicitly, how she looked and her emotions. And I felt so bad for her, because she had been, like, her entire family was dead, and she stood there, and someone was going to collect her, so they could have sex with her. And I just, I started feeling so bad for her, because she stood there with blood on her face, losing her entire family, and now she was going to be a sex slave. But that's what I find so beautiful about the main character, that he saved her. Her name was Bresias, that's the friendship I was talking about earlier. They were really, really loving each other. My book doesn't really include any discrimination, which is weird, considering it was published in 2017, I think. But I guess it makes sense, since we're, like, inside her head, and she doesn't receive any discrimination based on her sexuality or race or anything like that. And she's kind of selfish. I don't think she would have noticed, even if her best friend got discriminated against. But there is, not heavily implied, but kind of implied, a class difference. Davis's brother Noah, he's very affected by his dad's disappearance, and he's struggling, basically. He's 13, and he got caught smoking pot at school. And when Asa asked if he got arrested, he said no, and that the police didn't get involved in that stuff. But if, at Asa's school, which is a different school, in a working class area, they definitely would have gotten expelled, at least. And that's kind of interesting. Earlier you mentioned that she had a dead parent. Does the book explain anything, what happened? Yeah. He was mowing the grass in the garden, and she was 8 years old at this time, I think, and he just fell. He collapsed on the ground. He had a heart attack? Yeah, I think it was heart problems. I'm not sure. He just lay there, and her mom was panicking. And she had to go call 911. I think it was really traumatic, and probably affected her a little bit. My main character also went through not exactly the same thing, but he also had a dead mother. And we didn't get a lot of information, but it was mentioned in the start, so we did get a lot of anger built up in him. And I think that's what resulted in him killing a man, because he had anger issues, he provoked him, and he was 10 years old when he killed a man. You have to have a lot of anger to kill a man at 10. And when he then was... I think he was 10 years old, and he had PTSD. He saw the dead man in his dreams. He was everywhere, the blood, the skull cracking open. He described it very vividly, and I could see the man, because he... like Madeline Miller, the author, she described it so beautifully, because you could see every detail in the way she described it. And I think it's very important for her to have a lot of anger, because she has a lot of deep words. And I felt so bad for him. He was 10, and he was seeing dead bodies in his dreams. But talking about mental illnesses, does your main character have a lot of that? She basically inherited her dad's car, called Harold. And it's very, very important for her. And she keeps his phone in the trunk of the car, with all his pictures on it, and even though they're backed up on a computer, she still scrolls through them on his phone to make it more real. And yeah, she has a lot of mental illness. She has OCD and anxiety, and has gone to therapy for basically her whole life, I think, after her dad died. And she kind of is a selfish person, because of her mental illness. And it's kind of controversial to say, maybe, but she's selfish because of it, and it affects the people around her. Her best friend, for example, she doesn't even know where she lives, and she doesn't know what her best friend's parents work with, and she doesn't know anything. She's secretive. Yeah, I don't know. So, a little bit about the characters. Could you all, please, explain a little? Yeah, I could try. So, for example, on the mental illness topic, it's Aristotle, or Ari, and he, in the book, like the author of the book, he describes Ari as a typical angry teen, but I think it shows, really, through the book, that he isn't really angry, he is depressed. It really shows, for example, how the family dynamic works, because, for example, Ari's father, he has also PTSD, because he fought in the Vietnam War, and Ari's mother, she is a really beautiful and loving woman, but she hasn't really learned him to talk about his feelings, and therefore, that's also why he doesn't realize that he is in love with Dante, because he never has explored his feelings, and doesn't understand them. On the top of that, he has three siblings. He has two older twin sisters, who are called Sylvia and Cecilia, but they are like 27, and they have kids, so they're not really included in the story. And then he has his brother, who is 25 years old, so 10 years older, and his parents don't talk about the brother, Bernardo, because he is in prison, and Ari doesn't know why he is in prison, but he really begs his parents to tell him why, but they say, like, you don't want to know. And at the end of the book, his mother gives him the letters she wanted to send to Bernardo, but didn't, and she tells him why he is in prison, and it's because when Bernardo was 15, he was also an angry teen, which Ari has described like. And what he did was, he was 15, and he drove his car to the city, and there was this prostitute that he paid, and then when he found out that the prostitute was transgender, he beat her to death with his bare hands. Oh my god. That's discrimination right there. And because of that, we kind of understand why his parents have obviously never told him, because you don't want to know that about your own brother, but also when his depression gets worse, they kind of beg him to go see a therapist, but he doesn't want to, because he doesn't want to talk about his feelings to anyone. But then he realized that they are scared for him, because they don't want him to end up like his brother. But do you personally like the main character? Yeah, I do actually. I think I love them both, the two main characters, Ari and Dante, but I think the story is from Ari's point of view, so you kind of understand the way he thinks more, but I think I like Dante better, because he's so amazing, I love him, because he's like a free spirit, and he always speaks his mind, and I really like the way he is. I also feel kind of like this, because Patroclus is the main character, but I like Achilles better. But it is from Patroclus' point of view, and I actually like that, because Patroclus dies first. He dies before Achilles, and you can see his point of view, and the way he describes things so beautifully. But when he dies, you see a faint representation of what happens to Achilles in his grief after Patroclus died, and it's just so amazingly written that you just get captivated into the story. Because Achilles, he goes crazy, kills everyone, kills Hector, who killed Patroclus, which was the prophecy, the prophecy that his goddess mother told him, that if Hector dies, you're going to be dead anytime soon. So if Hector lives, you live. But he was like, he hasn't done anything to me. But then he kills Patroclus, and he was like, fuck you, I'm going to kill you, because you killed my lover, and he went crazy. And he dragged around Hector's dead body for weeks, just to show the kingdom of Troy, which they had the war against, just to show them that he killed their main prince. It was crazy. And he kept Patroclus' dead body in his bed for days, and he was just rotting. It was so bad. And then when he was cremated, Achilles said he wanted his ashes to be with Patroclus' ashes, but his mother, she did not want that. She did not want that at all, but they were already mixed together when Achilles died. And then Patroclus didn't get his name written on the gravestone, so he never went to the underworld with the gods. So it kind of was like this, he had to, while he was dead, have conversations with gods. Did you like your point of view, the main character? Well, as I said earlier, she's kind of selfish. She's stuck in her own mind, and the POV point of view, we're stuck inside a person's head that has both anxiety and OCD, and she gets stuck in these thought spirals, and she can't get out of them, and she's super, super scared of bacteria and diseases. And after her car crash, she has to go to the hospital, and she just can't relax. She's panicking, crying, screaming, and she even drinks hand sanitizer to disinfect her stomach, because she can't handle thinking about the bacteria in her stomach. And yeah, she goes wild, and she's a bad friend, and I kind of like her love interest more. She's kind of poetic and cool, and he makes his own blogs. Do you think the author described her problems well? Do you think the author made it seem like you're going to hate the main character because of her emotions? Not really. Towards the end, Daisy, her best friend, explains how she feels being her best friend. She writes fanfiction, and she has a bit of this story, and Ace has never read it, even though Daisy has told her multiple times, please read it, please read it. In the story, basically, there's a character called Aseela or something, really similar to Ace's name, and it's a character based off of her, and she's super annoying and creates so many problems. She's super dumb and just destroys everything, and it's Daisy's perception of Ace. But at the end, as I said, it changes, and they become better friends. Do you think the novel is good for teens today? Is it relevant for how the society is today, 2020? Yeah, mental illness is kind of common, I guess, teens today. It's a big problem, and I think if I had mental illness and was stuck in my own brain, maybe I would get more self-awareness of how maybe my friends would feel if... She's selfish, but she's not selfish because she has a big ego. She's just stuck in her own mind, and she... Has a lot of problems, and she can't deal with it. Yeah, it's not her fault, but it is her fault. Her actions do have consequences. She's not mean, she's just complicated. Yeah, she's complicated. A complex person. Do you think your story has any relevance today? I think this is a book everybody should read, and even though it's written for teenagers and young adults, I think since the book includes both the teens and the parents' point of view, I think everybody should read it. Because, for example, if you are a parent and have a queer child, it can be really good for you, because I think it can be really hard to come out of the closet and everything, and since the parents' hair in the book... Are so accepting. Yeah, they're so accepting, and it's a very comfortable coming out story, I think. Everybody could learn something from it. And even though you're not a part of the LGBTQ community, I think everybody should read it, because you'll learn how to accept, and also that it's hard. I just think it's a very good book. Yeah. My book is very old, the storyline, so I don't think it has really any reference to today, because it's fantasy, it's not based on real stories like, for example, your stories could be, because mental illness is a thing that's really... homosexual couples is a really... It's something that is openly accepted now. It wasn't then. But I think it's a good book. I would recommend it, but I don't think it's relevant today. I think it's just a good book. Yeah. So, more for reading. Yeah. It's more for reading, not for... Learning. Learning or relating. Yeah. Would you recommend your book? Yeah. I think maybe for teens or people... Struggle? Maybe people who struggle, yeah. And people who might be stuck in their head and not think about other people, yeah. Maybe it might open their eyes and they might get a new perspective. And I do recommend it. Personally, I thought it was an interesting book, but I didn't laugh. It's not a funny book, it's just interesting. Yeah. Complex. Why did you choose your book? Have you heard of it before? I have read it in like 6th grade, I think. No. Yeah, maybe 6th grade. I don't know the timeline, but I have read it in... Yeah. So you've read it before? Yeah. Did you think it was good before when you read it? I can't remember, really. No? Yeah. Yeah. It was a random choice, to be honest. How about you? I have a friend and she loves to read. She has read like everything and she really recommended this book and I think it's an amazing book. Really, I do. Yeah. So, I would recommend it. Yeah, me too. I was recommended. A friend that loves to read recommended it to me and I'm not disappointed. I really liked it. So, to sum up briefly, what is the theme of your... just a little... I think it's sort of identity because, as I said, she's selfish and she's discovering herself and she becomes a better person and I think it's clearly that she's... Coming of age? Yeah, coming of age and it's sort of full of story too. I mean, with her and Davis, the billionaire's son, but they break up at the end. What do you think, like briefly, what's the theme of your story? My book is a coming of age story, but it also discusses topics such as friendship and the struggles with racial and ethnic identity and also sexuality and family relationships, family problems, family love. I feel like it covers everything almost. Yeah, I feel you. Yeah, like theme, I think my book is just about pure love because they are soulmates and you can really feel it in the way like Patroclus explains it. And it's also a little bit about mental illness and they do age, so it can be a little coming of age story, but I don't think that's what's defining the story. And there's also like, yeah, there's a lot of things that's happening in the book, a lot that we cannot cover it all tonight. So is there anything else that you want to say? Not really. No, okay, but... Thank you for listening to this amazing podcast. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye.