The beloved cult classic about family, friendship and first love, from award-winning author Benjamin Alire Sáenz. This lyrical novel will enrapture readers of Adam Silvera (They Both Die at the End), The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Call me by your Name.

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison.

Dante is a know-it-all who has a unique perspective on life.

When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they develop a special friendship – the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about the universe, themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

This incredibly moving and powerful Printz Honor Book follows two teen boys learning to open themselves up to love, despite the world being against them.

The highly anticipated sequel to the beloved cult classic about family, friendship and first love, from award-winning author Benjamin Alire Saenz. This lyrical novel will enrapture readers of Love, Simon, John Green and Call me by your Name. A love story like no other. In Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, two boys fell in love. Now they must discover what it means to stay in love and build a relationship in a world that seems to challenge their very existence. Ari has spent all of high school hiding who he really is, staying silent and invisible. He expected his senior year to be the same. But something in him cracked open when he fell in love with Dante, and he can't go back. Suddenly he finds himself reaching out to new friends, standing up to bullies and making his voice heard. And, always, there is Dante - dreamy, witty Dante - who can get on Ari's nerves and fill him with desire all at once. The boys are determined to forge a path for themselves in a world that doesn't understand them. But when Ari is faced with a shocking loss, he'll have to fight like never before to create a life that is truthfully, joyfully his own.

The Espejo family of El Paso, Texas, is like so many others in America in 1967, trying to make sense of a rapidly escalating war they feel does not concern them. But when the eldest son, Gustavo, a complex and errant rebel, receives a certified letter ordering him to report to basic training, he chooses to flee instead to Mexico. Retreating back to the land of his grandfather--a foreign country to which he is no longer culturally connected--Gustavo sets into motion a series of events that will have catastrophic consequences on the fragile bonds holding the family together.

Told with raw power and searing bluntness, and filled with important themes as immediate as today's headlines, "Names on a Map" is arguably the most important work to date of a major American literary artist.

This immensely moving novel confronts divisions of race, gender, and class, fusing together the stories of people who come to recognize one another from former lives they didn't know existed -- or that they tried to forget. Diego, a deaf-mute, is barely surviving on the border in El Paso, Texas. Diego's sister, Helen, who lives with her husband in the posh suburbs of San Francisco, long ago abandoned both her brother and her El Paso roots. Helen's best friend, Lizzie, a nurse in an AIDS ward, begins to uncover her own buried past after a mystical encounter with a patient.

With "Carry Me Like Water," Benjamin Alire SAenz unfolds a beautiful story about hope and forgiveness, unexpected reunions, an expanded definition of family, and, ultimately, what happens when the disparate worlds of pain and privilege collide.

A warmly humane look at universal questions of belonging, infused with humour, from the bestselling author of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.

Sal used to know his place with his adoptive gay father, their loving Mexican American family, and his best friend, Samantha. But it’s senior year, and suddenly Sal is throwing punches, questioning everything, and realizing he no longer knows himself. If Sal’s not who he thought he was, who is he?

"To write well about your life, you need to have a life worth writing about. On that score, Saenz hits pay dirt." --"Booklist"

"A former Catholic priest, this poet creates prayerful verse that is at once mystical and utterly human." --"The Washington Post"

Poet, novelist, and popular YA writer Benjamin Alire Saenz writes to the core truth of life's ever-shifting memories. Set along the Mexican border, the contrast between the desert's austere beauty and the brutality of border politics mirrors humanity's capacity for both generosity and cruelty. In his numbered series "Meditation on Living in the Desert," Saenz turns to memory, heritage, and a host of literary progenitors as he directly confronts matters of faith, civil rights, and contemporary politics--always with the unrelenting moral urge to speak truth and "do" something.

"I am looking at a book of photographs.
The photographs document the exodus of Mexicans crossing the desert.
I am staring at the face of a woman who is more a girl than a woman.
She is handing her documents to a government official."

"I know and you know and we all know that the documents are forged.
The official is not in the photograph."

"Only the frightened eyes of a girl."

A former Catholic priest who worked with Mother Teresa, Benjamin Alire Saenz has published five books of poetry, four novels, a collection of short stories, and two bilingual children's books. He received the American Book Award and teaches in the bilingual MFA program at University of Texas, El Paso.

From award-winning poet Benjamin Alire Saenz comes "In Perfect Light," a haunting novel depicting the cruelties of cultural displacement and the resilience of those who are left in its aftermath.

"In Perfect Light" is the story of two strong-willed people who are forever altered by a single tragedy. After Andes Segovia's parents are killed in a car accident when he is still a young boy, his older brother decides to steal the family away to Juarez, Mexico. That decision, made with the best intentions, sets into motion the unraveling of an American family.

Years later, his family destroyed, Andes is left to make sense of the chaos -- but he is ill-equipped to make sense of his life. He begins a dark journey toward self-destruction, his talent and brilliance brought down by the weight of a burden too frightening and maddening to bear alone. The manifestation of this frustration is a singular rage that finds an outlet in a dark and seedy El Paso bar -- leading him improbably to Grace Delgado.

Recently confronted with her own sense of isolation and mortality, Grace is an unlikely angel, a therapist who agrees to treat Andes after he is arrested in the United States. The two are suspicious of each other, yet they slowly arrive at a tentative working relationship that allows each of them to examine his and her own fragile and damaged past. Andes begins to confront what lies behind his own violence, and Grace begins to understand how she has contributed to her own self-exile and isolation. What begins as an intriguing favor to a friend becomes Grace's lifeline -- even as secrets surrounding the death of Andes' parents threaten to strain the connection irreparably.

With the urgent, unflinching vision of a true storyteller and the precise, arresting language of a poet, Saenz's "In Perfect Light" bears witness to the cruelty of circumstance and, more than offering escape, the novel offers the possibility of salvation.

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When they meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the two loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special kind of friendship--the kind of friendship that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through their friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves--and about the kind of people they want to be.

A lyrical novel about family and friendship from critically acclaimed author Benjamin Alire Saenz.
Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship--the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

A heartfelt novel from the award-winning author of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. On the surface, Ramiro Lopez and Jake Upthegrove couldn't live more different lives. Ram is Mexican-American, lives in the poor section of town and is doing his best to keep his mother sane while his brother fights off a drug-induced coma. Jake is a WASP who drives a nice car, lives in a mansion and has a mother who drinks a bit too much and a step-father who cheats on her. But there is one point, one issue, where their lives are exactly the same; their fathers walked out on them when they were just young boys. And at this convergence, Ram and Jake see how everything in their lives is just a little bit similar, because they both blame everything that goes wrong on the one thing they actually have in common.

A "mesmerizing, poetic exploration of family, friendship, love and loss" from the acclaimed author of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. (New York Times Book Review) Sal used to know his place with his adoptive gay father, their loving Mexican American family, and his best friend, Samantha. But it's senior year, and suddenly Sal is throwing punches, questioning everything, and realizing he no longer knows himself. If Sal's not who he thought he was, who is he? This humor-infused, warmly humane look at universal questions of belonging is a triumph.

Four years before Annie Proulx's story "Brokeback Mountain" appeared in the "New Yorker," William Haywood Henderson published "Native," the tale of three gay men ensnared in the politics and prejudices of an isolated ranching town in Wyoming's Wind River Valley. Blue Parker, a careful twenty-three-year-old ranch foreman, in love with the West and his home in the mountains, finds himself drawn to his new ranch hand, Sam. For the first time in his life, Blue feels the possibility of a romantic connection, and he makes tentative plans to secret himself and Sam away in an idyllic camp high in the mountains. But the arrival in town of Gilbert, a Native American from the Wind River Indian Reservation, a man who fancies himself a modern-day berdache (or Two-Spirit), pushes Blue and Sam in unexpected, dangerous directions. Gilbert attempts to recreate the ancient traditions of his people, but the world has changed. Ultimately, Gilbert must try to find a new place for himself in society, and Blue must choose between his home and protecting the man he loves.