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

I watched the new film Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe before I knew that it was based on a novel. It is a coming of age story of two Mexican-American teenage boys, set in El Paso in the 1980s. The film is well-acted and visually compelling, with an initial a slow pace that leads to some of the subsequent important scenes feeling rushed, with the motivations of characters mixed or unclear. This flaw made me wonder how these scenes were dealt with in the novel itself. And hands-down the novel is better in many ways, including with the particular issues which brought me to read the book. A high proportion of the dialogue in the film is taken directly from the book, but the words are moved around and put into different scenes where they don't track completely smoothly in terms of context. I suppose this is a common issue with the process of turning a book into a film, but the it seemed a problem to me even before I read the book. Overall I liked the film, but the book is better.