In this simple but profound novel tackling teenage depression, Ned Vizzini has captured what it truly feels like to have such a debilitating mental illness but he has achieved this with immense humour, irony and total honesty.
Craig Gilner is under pressure from his highly competitive school, Executive Pre-Professional in Manhattan, to achieve, achieve, achieve – everyone knows that you have to get 96s to get into good university’s, not 93s! His utter fear of failure leads him to spiraling into a vicious circle of procrastination, melancholy and ultimately depression. He can’t eat, he can’t sleep, and he just can’t live. One night, when the weight of his hopelessness becomes too overwhelming, he thinks it best to end it all. Instead, checks into a mental hospital for a five-day stay, somewhat accidentally. What follows is a story of friendship in the unlikeliest of places, with the unlikeliest of people. Vizzini reveals that with a little help from your friends and a dash of hope, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
What makes It’s Kind of a Funny Story so brilliant is Vizzini’s writing style. It’s straight to the point, cutting, crisp, yet full of emotion. Vizzini has shown that, through the perspective of a teenager, an author doesn’t need to swallow a thesaurus to portray complex and intricate ideas. In fact, the effortlessness in which this novel is carried out affirms that the reader is in fact entering Vizzini’s own mind; the book was written in a month, after the author himself had visited an adult psychiatric hospital for his on-going struggle with depression. You can feel the connection with the author himself throughout Craig’s journey; this raw and frank attitude, parried with the unapologetic prose, makes the It’s Kind of a Funny Story like no other Young Adult book challenging the same concepts. In reality, some may find it difficult to recommend; the personal level on which it connects with the reader, especially those who have experience with such an illness, means that it would be no different than giving a piece of their own soul away.
My single criticism of this insightful and perceptive novel is the addition of crude and unwarranted ‘make out’ scenes whilst Craig spends time in hospital for his suicidal episode. Although making for interesting plot twists, it detracts from and even trivialises the important message Vizzini has for his readers: choose life, not death. Apart from these flashes of pure fiction, the stream of consciousness throughout is so relatable it hurts.
It is with deep regret that I was never able to thank Ned Vizzini whilst he was still here for identifying with the pressures teenagers, and adults for that matter, face everyday, and for being so violently sincere about such a widely misunderstood disorder.
“Life can’t be cured, but it can be managed.”
Words by Maddie