It's Kind of a Funny Story

I've read quite a few coming-of-age novels, and this one starts off in pretty much the same way. Lonely teenager is stressed and nothing seems to be going right. The difference here, and it's a fairly big one, is that the main character is suffering from depression.

The depiction of an adult psychiatric hospital isn't very realistic, but it didn't matter to me. There's an authenticity to the book that made its flaws seem much less important. It's funny, maybe a little sappy, but it's also warm and honest. It's a little too happy for the subject matter, but the characters and their feelings seem real.

RIP Ned Vizzini.

This is a difficult book to review. While I enjoyed it, I also felt sad while reading it, and I can't ignore the fact that this is inspired by the author's own experiences and that he lost to depression. It makes me feel incredibly sad.

It's Kind of a Funny Story is not a funny story—although there is some funny to it—it is an experience in itself, about how Craig, the main character, tries to cope with depression, to have a Shift, as he calls it. Don't expect a thrilling adventurous story, because that's not what you're going to get. This was rather slow paced, but it did keep me turning page after page.

Depression is a very serious illness and I appreciate how this book showed that it can affect anyone regardless of age or social background. It also dips into themes like drugs and sex from the perspective of a fifteen year old boy that I think is accurate and relatable. Actually, all of it is from the perspective of a fifteen year old boy.

I enjoyed reading the book, but it still makes me sad. I don't think that's a bad emotion, it's just a natural reaction to the story and its background.

Despite the heavy themes, It's Kind of a Funny Story has a hopeful note to it; things can get better, things are manageable, and can be tackled one by one.

Would I recommend reading this book? Yeah, I think I would. A lot of the readers, particularly those who deal(t) with depression, seem to have enjoyed reading it too (be warned there is mention of suicide), and for the ones who don't deal with it, it's a good book to familiarize ourselves with the topic, so yes, give it a go.

I feel sort of bad rating this but I don't think guilt should keep me from being honest...the dead can't be free from criticism. This book felt like a long rant, like a big scribble. At the same time, it felt too clean.

It felt like a lot of the book was little conversations that didn't drive the plot and barely revealed anything about the characters. Every person said things typical to their “character” and Craig rambled on and everyone thought what he was saying was great. In regards to it being clean, it was far too simple of a story. It's strange that an author who wrote this after his own dark and personal experience with depression wrote such a happy near-perfect ending. While Craig says at the end that his depression isn't cured, everything in his life magically fell into place and every problem was magically solved. All his sources of stress were fixed! It was so far from reality.

This novel was written in the spirit of hope. I'm very optimistic, so I can get it, but also I have a more realist perspective that prevented me from enjoying this.