3.5
Very cringey at times for me, as an adult reader, only because it is clearly aimed at a younger audience and has some immature high-school talk in it that I really didn't enjoy. That being said, it really hits the nail on the head when it comes to mental health experiences, and the main character's thoughts and observations are things I could really relate to. It definitely made me tear up a couple times. I didn't know until after I read it that the author later died of suicide, which definitely affects how I see the novel.

This novel doesn’t hesitate to dive into the mind of its protagonist, Craig Gilner. After the stress builds up from his admission into a pre-professional high school, Craig attempts to commit suicide. He fails and is admitted into a hospital with a slew of quirky roommates. This novel encapsulates the feelings and worries of adolescence that are often kept quiet in regard to popular media. The doubts that Craig feels are common among teenagers, however in not talking about them it has an isolating effect. So, in Vizzini writing this novel and putting into physical form the conversation of mental illness, it continues to bring acceptance to the topic. I enjoyed this book, however Vizzini’s style is a bit jarring and quirky, which compliments the story but may disrupt the reader.

I finished reading It’s Kind of A Funny Story by Ned Vizzini tonight, it’s not bad. I think that teens would really enjoy the book, and I found myself chuckling through some of it. Vizzini captured, for the most part, the way a teen would think about things especially school, the opposite sex, & vices. I even found myself relating to a couple of the issues that the fifteen-year-old main character was dealing with, and I’m 24. I didn’t love it though. Sometimes it felt like a watered down & uplifting teen version of One flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest?

What I also liked was that this was written from a teen boy’s perspective. I feel that there are so many books about young women dealing with a wide variety of issues, but not many that focus on boys. We seem to forget that young men struggle with stress and anxiety too; they’re self-conscious and awkward and have feelings. Probably this is ingrained a little in society’s thinking that men must not have feelings because that isn’t masculine, but in fact, I think it would be better if there were more books about boys that focused on awkwardness & feelings instead of pinning it on Michael Cera humor.

Not too bad of a read. I wish there was more on the transexual (transgender? The author never made that extremely clear) character because (s)he barely had a part and yet was included in the summary. The middle was rather slow but it eventually picked up again. I always mix this up with The Perks of Being a Wallflower which is annoying, so I was confused about what happened to whom respectively at one point. So yeah. I almost wish, now that I think about it, that I hadn't bought it. My money would've been better spent on a well, better book, but oh well. I didn't absolutely hate it (*cough*THESCARLETLETTER*cough*) so yay to that.

I would have given this 5 stars for an interesting portrayal of teen depression. The transphobic and homophobic lines in the book were not ok though, so I'm left feeling pretty conflicted about the content.

I read this after seeing the movie, which is always a risky move, but for the most part, I enjoyed both, even if they seem dissimilar.

The story was good but the character seemed a little too old and self-aware for his age. I understand that the author wrote this novel after leaving a mental health hospital as a teenager himself, so I'm impressed that he was so articulate at such a young age.

Regardless, the storyline seemed a little too perfect, convenient, and tidily completed and that amped up my skeptical meter. But maybe that's my old age talking and young adults need more black and white resolutions to their preferred genre.