“The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.'' This novel represents the LGBTQ+ community with two young boys falling in love in a world with a vast and unaccepting culture towards their sexuality. The book “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe '' by Benjamin Alire Sáenz shows themes of identity. In the book Aristotle shows this through him struggling to figure out his belonging. He struggles to accept the fact that his belonging might be that he is gay. In the first half of the novel Aristotle demonstrates his identity through belonging, you can see this in the book when it says “I just, I don’t know, I just didn’t belong. I think it embarrassed the hell out of me that I was a guy” …show more content…
Everybody needs a friend.” “I need a friend too,” I said. I had never said that before” (page 307). This quote shows that Aristotle starts to feel as if he belongs because part of his identity is now being Dante’s friend. The part where it said “He needs a friend. Everybody needs a friend.” “I need a friend too,” is when Aristotle realized that just like how having a friend was part of what made some people who they were, Dante was what made Aristotle feel like who he really was. Earlier in the same conversation where Aristotle was talking to Dante’s dad he said “There are worse things in the world than a boy who likes to kiss other boys.” Here in the conversation Aristotle was showing how grounded he felt with his new belonging with Dante. He defended Dante’s choice to be gay because Aristotle started to realize how he felt about his own sexuality. “What did I say when you kissed me?” “You said it didn’t work for you.” “I lied.” He looked at me. “Don’t play with me, Ari.” “I’m not.” I took him by the shoulders. I looked at him. And he looked at me. “You said I wasn’t scared of anything. That’s not true. You. That’s what I’m afraid of. I’m afraid of you, Dante” (Page 358). Here Aristotle finally accepted himself for who he was and confessed to