It's Kind of a Funny Story: My Review

[Hailey]

Ned Vizzini has a distinct advantage over other young adult writers who pen tales of teens battling depression, suicidal thoughts, and psychiatric units: as a teen, he suffered from clinical depression and spent time in a psychiatric hospital himself. His bestselling novel It’s Kind of a Funny Story is the kind of book your parents would freak out about if they caught you reading: it basically juggles every touchy teen issue between its front and back covers. Main character Craig Gilner suffers the basic pains of a modern teen: clueless parents who have good intentions but actually hurt more than they help, a massive crush on his best buddy’s girlfriend who remains totally off-limits, and peer pressure. After obsessively preparing and studying to get into a pre-business professional school, Craig makes it in but discovers he can’t handle the work load. The only thing that let him pass the entry exam was the fact that he spent a year of his life dedicated to compulsive preparation. In an attempt to deal with all this, he parties daily with friends who drink and smoke pot to mask their angst. Craig’s mental condition deteriorates and he becomes suicidal. Medication and time do not heal the issue, and after a near jump off the Brooklyn Bridge Craig checks himself into the local hospital. There he meets all kinds of people with varying illnesses and disorders. New friends are found, deep discussions ensue, and Craig comes face to face with his condition. He enters a week-long healing process and eventually wins the battle in his mind: his brain “shifts” back into a normal mindset. Craig eventually learns to appreciate and love life again.
Vizzini provides a meaningful insight unobserved by most of us, and helps us learn to understand and respect those with psychological issues and disorders. The story unfolds with great execution and thought. I found myself rooting for the recovery of Craig. His life events and hardships are incredibly realistic and perhaps even relatable for some of us. The book contained a lot of energy and motion, and it tackled some highly touchy topics with a laid-back kind of ease and a some relieving humor as well. The humor was the glue that held tricky pages together: Vizinni proves that a difficult subject can actually be quite funny. Even the cover was well thought out: each piece of Craig’s mind on the cover is also featured on the first page of each chapter, so that the reader can make connections as to where they are in Craig’s brain at that point in time. I would rate this book with a 10 out of 10. Brilliantly constructed, this book flattens the rift between two seemingly distant kinds of people: and suggests they're actually not as different as they think. :)