Darius the Great Is Not Okay

This novel got a lot of hype before and after its release - and it deserves it. It has great minority representation, from Persian (and bi-racial!) to Zoroastrian and Baha'i, to clinical depression and male friendship. You could also read gay and/or asexual into it, but that's not explicitly mentioned. Romantic love is just never addressed; perhaps because the story just doesn't involve it, but you could definitely read the main character as ace.

Darius is a great main character. He's funny, self-deprecating, and complex. He has clinical depression, is medicated for it, and can sometimes tell when it's the depression making him think a certain way, but sometimes he can't. He's biracial, visiting Iran and his mother's Persian family for the first time, and adjusting to Persian social norms and traditions while trying not to lose sight of his American life. His connection with his father is tenuous and fraught with miscommunication, and lot of the book is spent wrestling with that relationship. His new friend, Sohrab, is a great foil to that, as his father is completely absent from his life, having been arrested and thrown in jail prior to the start of the story, largely for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and being part of a minority religion.

There are so many small things touched on this book - suspicion at customs when flying through, bullying at school for being Persian, not speaking his family's language because his mother didn't teach it to him (and feeling cut off because of it) - all little things that a lot of immigrant children deal with.

Aside from the cultural things the book addresses, there's also the mental health aspect. Both Darius and his father have clinical depression, and there's stigma attached to having the diagnosis, and to taking pills for it. We see how their mental states affects their relationship with each other and with the rest of their family, and it's quite powerful. The author talks about having clinical depression in an afterword, and includes some resources that helped him. This is an #ownvoices novel in more ways than one, and it really shows. Excellent book.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

This book was an unexpected delight. I knew going in that this book included a strong focus on depression, but it is not a sad book.

I enjoyed getting to see the world through the lens that Darius has, even as he struggles because he also starts to see that the world is a beautiful place, and things are not always just as they appear.

This book has wonderful perspective about seeing ourselves and others as whole people, with good things and less good things, but ultimately giving grace and being okay with difference.

Almost all of the experience of Darius is outside of my experience, and I really enjoyed going on an adventure (on my computer) to see Yazd, learning about the B'hai and Zoroastrian faiths, and learning about tea. It's a fun read with cultural notes.

Also: The narrator of the audiobook does a fantastic job.

“Suicide isn't the only way you can lose someone to depression.”

I really liked “Darius,” and the way the author explored depression, family, friendship, and self-esteem. I know what it's like to be “inexplicably” sad in a way that just seems ridiculous and spoiled to people who haven't been there. I know what it's like to say the worst, meanest things to people I care about. I know what it's like to see every human interaction in the darkest, most suspicious light. I know what it's like to feel I've disappointed a parent by just being me.

Anyhow, the Iranian setting was also amazing! I loved how Darius became more himself by meeting this portion of his family, and realizing he belonged to something bigger than himself, when he stopped worrying about being Persian enough.

I thought it was terrific how the reader could see that one of the kids Darius went to school with (in America) wanted to be friends, but Darius wasn't in a place where he could see it, not until he returned home.

Darius's friendship with Sohrab was great, but what made the book for me was the exploration of Darius's relationship with his father, and now what can seem like rejection is really based on that person's pain, their feelings of failure and inadequacy. They're not rejecting you so much as dealing with their own issues.

“Suicide isn't the only way you can lose someone to depression.”

This book was a solid 4 stars until the last page. Then it made me cry and that was it. Darius's story, the discovery of Iran, Persian culture, his friendship with Sorhab was really beautiful, endearing and touching. But it was the way depression is shown and the toll it takes on one's life and mind, without dramatising it, just by showing things as they are, that made this book really powerful and made me love it. I'm still shedding some tears from the after-read, but I just wanted to say, as someone who suffers from depression: Thank you.

Man I've been getting so lucky with my book choices, third 5 star in a row! I loved every second of this book. I love Darius, I love his family, I loved Yazd. Having grown up away from my home country and having to experience the cultural differences really hit home, especially the stigma towards mental health outside of the West. Amazing, amazing book, definitely one I'll be rereading in the future

Ohhhh I just loved this book so much. I loved Darius. I felt like his struggles here are captured so poignantly, including his awareness that “nothing bad has ever happened to him” and yet he still feels his depression. (Because...that's how it works.) And the sense of not really knowing his family, and the sense that we as a reader get that there's more going on with his parents than Darius can perceive...and yet he's also a funny, observant narrator, and I loved the peek into life in Iran as well.

I also really loved his friendship with Sohrab, and just kind of...the vaguest hint of neither of them being able to fully process their feelings for each other but just the power of finally finding a friend being a good enough place to start.

UGH. BEAUTIFUL.

A heartfelt and touching story about mental illness, and the difficulties of growing up as mixed, and the complexities of those two together. I have struggled with depression most of my life, and this book wonderfully depicted it, without falling into the same story I see time and time again about it. I also felt the depiction of Iran felt so real and beautiful, and human, like I was there, learning with Darius about the culture he came from. I plan to read the second book, and I will be re-reading this one.