It’s Kind of a Funny Story — Ned Vizzini

“The shift is coming. The shift has to be coming. Because if you keep on living like this you’ll die.”

Synopsis:

Like many ambitious New York City teenagers, Craig Gilner sees entry into Manhattan's Executive Pre-Professional High School as the ticket to his future. Determined to succeed at life - which means getting into the right high school to get into the right college to get the right job - Craig studies night and day to ace the entrance exam and does. That's when things start to get crazy.

At his new school, Craig realizes that he isn't brilliant compared to the other kids; he's just average, and maybe not even that. He soon sees his once-perfect future crumbling away. The stress becomes unbearable and Craig stops eating and sleeping-until, one night, he nearly kills himself.

Craig's suicidal episode gets him checked into a mental hospital, where his new neighbors include a transsexual sex addict, a girl who has scarred her own face with scissors, and the self-elected President Armelio. There, isolated from the crushing pressures of school and friends, Craig is finally able to confront the sources of his anxiety.

Ned Vizzini, who himself spent time in a psychiatric hospital, has created a remarkably moving tale about the sometimes-unexpected road to happiness. For a novel about depression, it's definitely a funny story.

Opinion:

There is not too much to say about this book. There was a time that I felt exactly the same and knowing this can be normal is just not so depressing. Being depressed is not feeling bad or sad, being depressed is feeling: anything. And that hole inside is what consumes people, what consumed me for a period of time.

What helped me to get out of that stage was changing of environment, I changed the things I did, the people I saw. That change helped me to turn the page. And that is exactly what this book shows on its story.

Not being anymore on that stage makes me feel good, and I just want to continue.

Quotes:

“It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you’re so relieved. I woke into a nightmare.”

“They always said on TV you could do anything you wanted, but here I was trying to do something and it wasn’t working.”

“The shift is coming. The shift has to be coming. Because if you keep on living like this you’ll die.”

“I wasn’t gifted. I was just smart and worked hard. I had fooled myself into thinking that was something important to the rest of the world. Other people were complicit in this ruse. Nobody had told me I was common.”

“Well… I’ve had them for years. Just less intense. I thought they were, you know, just part of growing up. Suicidal feelings.”

“It’s a talent I’ve developed, one thing I’ve learned recently. How to think nothing. Here’s the trick: don’t have any interest in the world around you, don’t have any hope in the future, and be warm.”

“I think my problem might be too much thinking.”

“I’m not afraid of dying; I ‘m afraid of living.”

“Everything in my life is all in my brain, really, so it would be natural that when my brain was screwed up, everything in my life would be.”

Score (3.5/5)