When the outbreak of a pandemic swine-flu wiped out 99% of humanity, what will happen to the survivors? This book is not so much about apocalypse as about memory and loss, nostalgia and yearning, and the attempt of art to deepen our ephemeral impressions of the world. Whereas most apocalypse stories push harshly forward into terror or dystopia, this novel moves back and forth in time, illustrating the pre-apocalyptic world and twenty years after civilization has collapsed, when the worst is over and survivors have grouped themselves into isolated settlements.

This is a world where an institution has perfected the ability to predict when someone is going to die. This same world has a call center named Death-Cast, that’s responsible for phoning individuals during midnight to let them know they are dying in the next 24 hours. Furthermore, this cruel world has an app, Last Friend, much like a dating service, that allows people to find other to-be-dead people to spend their End Day together.

Let me just put it this way: The book is magic. The writing is magic. The plot is about magic. When I said modern literature can hardly measure up to the classics, I didn’t expect to run into this sparkling and mesmerizing prose. The descriptions were immersive, atmospheric and pure enchanting that they encapsulate your emotions at the very point of the book they are placed.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secretes of the Universe is about two boys, Aristotle Mendoza and Dante Quitana growing up in El Paso, Texas during the 1980s. When Ari, a perpetually annoyed and angry teen met Dante, a sentimental and know-it-all young man, their whole world changed. As readers, we witnessed their lives from age fifteen to seventeen, watching their relationships with oneself, each other, and the world grow, change and strengthen.