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It's Kind of a Funny Story
by Ned Vizzini
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About This Book
ISBN13: 9780786851966 |
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
Like many smart, ambitious New York City teenagers, Craig Gilner seeks entry into Manhattan's most prestigious school, Executive Pre-Professional High School. With single-minded determination, he works night and day to ace the entrance exam and gets in. That's when everything starts to unravel.
Once Craig starts his new school, he realizes he's just one of many brilliant kids, and he isn't even brilliant, he's average. As Craig starts getting so-so grades, he sees his once-perfect future crumbling away. He begins to have trouble eating, sleeping, and thinking — that's when he tells his parents he's depressed. He goes on medication and talks to therapists, but things keep getting worse, until one night Craig feels so low that he seriously considers suicide.
But instead, Craig calls a hotline. The counselor tells him to get to the nearest hospital, and before he knows it, he's signed, sealed, and delivered into one of Brooklyn's finest psychiatric units.
Craig's new roommate is an Egyptian schoolteacher who refuses to get out of bed. His neighbors include a transsexual sex addict, and a girl who has scarred her own face with scissors. But somehow in this motley crew, Craig finds real friends and kindred spirits who give him strength.
This is a remarkably moving and authentic picture of the physicality, the despair, and even the hilarity, of depression.
Review:
"It's so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself' is the attention-grabbing first line of Vizzini's (Be More Chill) highly readable and ultimately upbeat novel. Though Craig was elated when he passed the entry exam for Manhattan's highly competitive Executive Pre-Professional High School, during his first year there he grows increasingly overwhelmed. Matters aren't helped by his new habit of smoking pot and then tormenting himself by hanging out with his best friend, Aaron, and Aaron's girlfriend, Nia, on whom Craig has a longstanding crush. Unable to eat and seriously considering suicide, Craig checks himself into a psychiatric hospital. There, Craig finds his true calling as a visual artist, begins a promising romantic relationship with another patient, helps yet another patient get a place in an adult home, and arranges a thoughtful treat for his reclusive Egyptian roommate — all in a mere five days, a timeframe that readers struggling with their own issues may find somewhat daunting. Still, few would begrudge Craig his exhilarating recovery. The author clearly has not lost his knack for conveying the textures of teenage life. Ages 13-up." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:
"Craig's well-paced narrative, carefully and insightfully detailing his confusing slide and his desperate efforts to get well, is filled with humor and pathos." School Library Journal
Review:
"[W]hat's terrific about the book is Craig's voice — intimate, real, funny, ironic, and one kids will come closer to hear....This book offers hope in a package that readers will find enticing, and that's the gift it offers." Booklist
Review:
"Ned Vizzini's newest novel is peppered with drinking, drugs, and sex, as well as familiar subjects that today's teens are faced with on a regular basis." Children's Literature
Review:
"For the readers who stick with him until the end, the results will resonate with them just as loudly as Craig's newfound credo: to live for real." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis:
The author of "Be More Chill" takes a poignant look at teenage depression in this remarkably moving and authentic picture of the physicality, the despair, and even the hilarity of depression. Hyperion Books for Children/Miramax Books
About the Author
Ned Vizzini's own experience in a psychiatric hospital inspired him to write this story. He is also the author of Be More Chill and Teen Angst? Naah...
What Our Readers Are Saying
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Average customer rating based on 4 comments:
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Tyrael_10, July 3, 2008 (view all comments by Tyrael_10)
This was a great book, i have never been as interested in any book as i am of this one. Its about a normal teenager named Craig Gilner who wants to succeed in life so he tries hard to get into this Executive Pre-Professional High School. But this leads to some problems which Craig refers to as "tentacles". He starts noticing that while he is getting 93's in his classes others were getting 100's and they were all more advanced in the classes they took, plus they were in clubs. This made him feel dumb and depressed. On top of all of this his best friend Aaron gets with a girl named Nia, which Craig really likes. Soon all of this pressure got to him and he decided to kill himself one night by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge. Instead he calls the suicide hot line which instructs him to go to the hospital. While in Argenon Hospital he meets other ppl who have similar problems. He meets a transexual sex addict, a girl named Noelle who scarred her on face with scissors, and other depressed people. Craig eventually finds what he calls an "anchor". His "anchor" is his art or "brain maps" as he calls them. Craig felt safe at the hospital but hes knows its a fake environment and he knew he would have to face the real world eventually. He gets Noelles number to keep in touch with her when he gets out. In five days his parents come for him and he feels, while walking home, that the real "shift" had occurred in his brain.
I feel this book really connects with the teenagers of today with all we have to face and it shows them how one teenager learned to deal with it all and that suicide was no solution.
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jessica_curtis2005, May 16, 2008 (view all comments by jessica_curtis2005)
I found this book amazing. I like how Ned Vizzini wrote this book. I rarley read books but my friend told me about it and the title caught my attention and sio read it, it took me 3 days to read it cause it was so good.
But anyways, Craig is a prime example of how life can be and how some people act in life, he's not the only one going through depression.
I just loved the book.
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agiannotti24, May 1, 2008 (view all comments by agiannotti24)
goooooooooooooooooooooood:D
View all 4 comments
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9780786851966
- Author:
- Publisher:
- Miramax Books
- Subject:
- General
- Subject:
- Mental Illness
- Subject:
- Depression, mental
- Subject:
- General Juvenile Fiction
- Publication Date:
- March 2006
- Binding:
- Hardcover
- Grade Level:
- General/trade
- Language:
- English
- Pages:
- 444
- Dimensions:
- 8.06x5.88x1.34 in. 1.18 lbs.
- Age Level:
- 13-17
