IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY by NED VIZZINI

Ever since Craig Gilner got into his target exclusive high school, everything about his life went downhill which led him into depression. He decided the best course of action was to just end his life. A brief call to the suicide hotline bought him time and got him admitted to a hospital. He would spend a good five days surrounded by other older crazies with their own life issues in the psychiatric ward where he would learn for himself what was going on with him and how he should come to terms with it.   

The party line is that some of the most profound truths about us are the things we stop saying in the middle… – Craig Gilner

It’s Kind of a Funny Story was a rather light tackling of a very serious subject. The narrative was comic. I understand that being taken from a teenager’s point of view aided this approach. It was amusing how so casual depression, school pressure, peer pressure and suicide were taken as though they were just one of those bodily changes teens go through during transition period. Looking at the content, it was still a positive read because it came out a playful step-by-step manual of how things steeply go down and gradually up with a depressed adolescent.

It was educational and insightful. It was like wearing a head of a teenager, a troubled one at that, giving readers an overview of the things that happen inside that mind. There was so much learning about how such mind processes things, how much confusing it can get for adolescents and how putting things in perspective for them can be the only lifesaver they need.

Relationships change even more than people. It’s like two people changing. It’s exponentially more volatile. – Dr. Minerva

Though some would see the plot as normal, it was still unique in a sense that it did not just expound on young love, teenage rebellion or pubertal adjustments (which are the favorite themes involving youngsters) but mainly on teenage depression already bordering to suicide which triggered some interesting discussions inside my own head.

We wear our problems differently. – Craig Gilner

I felt it made an impression but didn’t leave much impact in the end. Like it was sometimes light, then sometimes too light for me, or it was sometimes starting to get critically complex then the momentum will just fall off like that. While I already mentioned that it had opened some interesting ideas, I was left hanging and hoping for something a bit deeper on the attack and content. (That being said, I’ve also learned that Vizzini wrote the whole novel in just a short time (one or two months?), so that kind of, sort of changed the way I think about this book. Still, I wish there were something more to it.)

Even when first published in 2006, It’s Kind of a Funny Story is still very much relevant today. There are so many takeaways, some to reflect on and some to laugh about. Just recently I watched this certain program with an episode focused on suicide. What a crazy world we live in.

To be honest, I am still unsure how I feel about this book. It provided some really interesting ideas. It was not dragging; it was actually very quick to finish. In conclusion, I guess it was just average for me. While I can say that I had a nice time reading this one, I believe this will be more enjoyable and relatable among the adolescents of today.

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