Saenz, Benjamin Alire

Earnest love stories by Rainbow Rowell, TJ Klune and Talia Hibbert will tug at your heartstrings while grappling with real, often dark, issues.Break out the heart eyes and rugby kits: The much-anticipated third season of the gushingly earnest teen romantic dramedy “Heartstopper” arrives on Netflix on Oct. 3.The show, based on the best-selling graphic novel series by Alice Oseman, follows Nick Nelson, a golden retriever of a rugby player, and Charlie Spring, a sensitive drummer, who meet-cute one day in homeroom. They and their friends cover every stripe of the L.G.B.T.Q. rainbow. They’re also goofy and anxious and smart and exuberant, all of the things teenagers are as they discover love and attraction for the first time. The show deals frequently with difficult issues — bullying, eating disorders, gender dysphoria, housing insecurity — while also painting an effervescent picture of adolescence that, in a homage to the comics, is sprinkled with hearts and fireworks.There are five volumes of “Heartstopper” — plus two spinoff novellas and a stand-alone novel, “Solitaire,” about Charlie’s prickly, fan-favorite older sister — available to read while you wait for a sixth book (and a potential fourth season). But if you’ve already blown through Oseman’s oeuvre and are craving more young adult love stories that grapple with darker themes, these books are for you.I’d like a grounded, heartfelt love storyAristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the UniverseBy Benjamin Alire SáenzWhen we first meet Aristotle Mendoza, he is 15, bored and miserable, staring down another summer in El Paso. Then he meets Dante Quintana, who teaches Ari how to swim at the community pool. Their friendship blooms from there, growing out of comic books, bus rides and heated debates about the literary merits of Joseph Conrad.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More