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Challenger Deep Golden Kite Awards Neal Shusterman Brendan Shusterman Books

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Challenger Deep Golden Kite Awards Neal Shusterman Brendan Shusterman Books

I'm constantly looking for fiction including schizophrenic characters that doesn't just write us as murderers, or unhinged, or scary. While looking for a way to spend the rest of my Amazon gift card balance, I found this book. I didn't see any reviews by actual schizophrenic people, but most readers were saying that it was an empathetic portrayal, which I took as a good sign. I took the dive. Minor spoiler warnings ahead.

And they were right. It’s the most empathetic, humanizing story about a schizophrenic character I have EVER read and I was shocked with how nuanced and accurate it was. It wasn’t just “oh seeing things that aren’t there… ohhh, scary,” but it was the whole picture. The thought disorder, the speech disorder, the visceral feeling of psychosis. The author based it on his schizophrenic son, and it’s very clear to me that he was studious and sensitive with getting his input.

I had some nitpicks with how the author wrote the MC’s medications to be necessary to recovery–even though he adequately brought to light how awful it can feel taking meds, it seemed they were still one of the primary separators in the book between being "well" and being "not well". Meds legitimately aren’t as good as they could be in real life, and aren’t the best solution for everyone, and I was frustrated that wasn’t called out more, but I'm willing to forgive that because of just how human everything else about this book was.

Something I really appreciated was the author made a point of showing that recovery isn’t just a one-way street from “not functioning” to “functioning”, but it's a state of being that goes through cycles; remission and relapse. As the MC works through his psychotic break it's emphasized that he's not cured, and he might come back to this point again in the future, but it’ll be okay because he can work through it again.

Very predictably, the story goes the route of having the MC hospitalized, but the book allowed him to be angry with the psych ward and have his grievances about it legitimized, and I really enjoyed that. People tend to dismiss complaints about wards but they are legitimately exploitative and can be downright horrifying, and I was grateful it wasn't a perfect haven in the book. As most non mentally ill-written accounts of psych wards are, I just wish it would’ve gone a little further, but it wasn’t outright frustrating.

He also makes friends with other kids in the ward and his friendships are legitimately helpful to his recovery, which is also really really important. It wasn’t just like “the healthy people know what's best for you and will rid you of this”, but the other mentally ill kids were integral to him gaining a better understanding of himself. Psychotic people don’t just need to be “cured”; they need to be understood, and they need to have their experiences validated. The kids related to each other in their own psychotic ways and that was everything. The way I think as a schizophrenic person can be so alienating and so lonely among non-psychotic people because they don’t understand and usually don’t try to, and I was so happy that the MC was given a chance to find comraderie from people in a similar boat.

In particular, the MC deals with delusions of granduer and reference where he feels he can see all of these signs and patterns, like they’re great truths about the world, but he can’t articulate them and people don’t understand, and he has to get it out of his head because the weight of it is consuming him even though he doesn’t really know what it is and I just relate to that feeling so, so much. But when he gets to the ward, he talks to the other kids and finds that they understand the feeling, and they talk about it, and it was just so important to me in particular that the author gave them room to do that.

Here is my biggest criticism: I have a huge issue with how a particular kid in the ward was written. One of the kids is a survivor of pretty significant trauma, and during group sessions she’s notorious for relating the conversation back to her trauma and describing it in detail over and over again, and the other kids see this as annoying. Later in the book the mc crudely tells her to get over it, and the group mediator actually praises him for this after the session.

This is infuriating because 1) it paints a trauma survivor as selfish and melodramatic, which is something we endure from society already, 2) it assumes that trauma survivors, a KID no less, is likely to freely talk about their experiences to get attention or to be self-destructive, which is just not the reality–real life trauma survivors are forced to be silent and so we internalize our pain and are acutely self-conscious of being overdramatic or attention-seeking, and 3) it assumes that yelling at a kid with PTSD is gonna make them get over it. This didn’t take up much of the book so I’m only a bit mad about it, but it was pretty upsetting to read in the moment and I’m disappointed that an otherwise humanizing story about schizophrenia would demonize a trauma survivor so readily.

I also felt annoyed with how the parents were always visibly uncomfortable and upset around their son during his break, which is a common trope where parents of psychotic kids “grieve” for their kids pre-break and make their child’s suffering all about them. They only seem to connect with him as a person when he’s not actively psychotic.

But, really. All-in-all it was accurate, it was sensible, the structure of the chapters and the writing was easy for me to digest, and it was the only “schizophrenic kid has a Beautiful Mind-style psychotic break and goes to a ward” type of plot i’ve ever seen written well, ever.

TL;DR: if you need a decent story about a schizophrenic to heal from all the awful stuff the media usually writes about us, I really recommend it. It’s not 100% perfect, and I really wish there was more fiction about schizophrenic people not necessarily about us being in hospitals and going crazy, just us existing as much as non-schizophrenics; but this is still a much, much-needed step away from the insane killer trope, and I really cherished that. I'd give it five stars if it weren't for the weird victim-blaming with the trauma-survivor girl in the ward.


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Challenger Deep Golden Kite Awards Neal Shusterman Brendan Shusterman Books Reviews

This is a chilling account of a young man's descent into mental illness, psychotic thinking, fierce determination, and the marvels of modern psychopharmacology. Mr. Shusterman find the words that aptly convey the psychic pain caused by mental illness. It is also a story of a family supporting their son, brother, and friend on a very perilously journey. Never before have I read such a description of psychosis. This text should be required reading for anyone who know or cares for someone who suffers mental illness, or is training in the mental health field i.e. psychiatrists, psychologist, social workers, psych techs, etc. It is an excellent resource for families to help them understand their loved one’s experience. This book received the 2015 National Book Award as the book of the year in the category child and adolescence for good reason.
Challenger Deep takes a dive into mental illnesses & approaches it in a unique way. at first, the book is tough to get through due to the way it's written. i've read so many of Neal's books, i have a feel for what his style is like, but this.. it definitely is Neal's work, ingenious & brilliant, but as a whole, it didn't make sense until he tied it up at the end in a way that left me speechless. after finishing the story itself, i felt relief, comfort, & awe. the author's note followed, & that was what left me in tears. i highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a better understanding of mental illnesses or if you have one, it may help you better understand yourself. every book is a work of art, but this is truly a masterpiece.
In the beginning, I found the story very compelling and very familiar, as someone who experiences psychosis myself. It was very subtle and very relatable, and while the whole ship narrative I found kind of over the top, it did well to show how the main character felt about people around him. However, once he goes to an inpatient facility, it becomes VERY obvious that the author has never been inside one, and it became much more sensationalist and unrealistic. The beginning made me feel like the book was written for people like me, but at the end it was really clear that this book is just another book about how "strange" and "scary" it is to be psychotic. If it had cut off in the middle, I would've really enjoyed it.
The fact that I read this book start to finish in less than 24 hours speaks to how captivating it really was. It's sad, and funny, and heartbreaking, and uncomfortable, and engrossing, and I just couldn't put it down. The metaphor that weaves the story together is captivating, and much like mental illness itself, it gives moments where you can tell what's real, broken by snippets of memories, but overall still a feeling of being untethered to reality. This is not only an important story about a boy struggling with severe mental illness, but it's also a poignant journey about finding oneself, and how we get through our daily lives in the best way we know how. A very moving story, and one that will stick with you for a time.
I'm constantly looking for fiction including schizophrenic characters that doesn't just write us as murderers, or unhinged, or scary. While looking for a way to spend the rest of my gift card balance, I found this book. I didn't see any reviews by actual schizophrenic people, but most readers were saying that it was an empathetic portrayal, which I took as a good sign. I took the dive. Minor spoiler warnings ahead.

And they were right. It’s the most empathetic, humanizing story about a schizophrenic character I have EVER read and I was shocked with how nuanced and accurate it was. It wasn’t just “oh seeing things that aren’t there… ohhh, scary,” but it was the whole picture. The thought disorder, the speech disorder, the visceral feeling of psychosis. The author based it on his schizophrenic son, and it’s very clear to me that he was studious and sensitive with getting his input.

I had some nitpicks with how the author wrote the MC’s medications to be necessary to recovery–even though he adequately brought to light how awful it can feel taking meds, it seemed they were still one of the primary separators in the book between being "well" and being "not well". Meds legitimately aren’t as good as they could be in real life, and aren’t the best solution for everyone, and I was frustrated that wasn’t called out more, but I'm willing to forgive that because of just how human everything else about this book was.

Something I really appreciated was the author made a point of showing that recovery isn’t just a one-way street from “not functioning” to “functioning”, but it's a state of being that goes through cycles; remission and relapse. As the MC works through his psychotic break it's emphasized that he's not cured, and he might come back to this point again in the future, but it’ll be okay because he can work through it again.

Very predictably, the story goes the route of having the MC hospitalized, but the book allowed him to be angry with the psych ward and have his grievances about it legitimized, and I really enjoyed that. People tend to dismiss complaints about wards but they are legitimately exploitative and can be downright horrifying, and I was grateful it wasn't a perfect haven in the book. As most non mentally ill-written accounts of psych wards are, I just wish it would’ve gone a little further, but it wasn’t outright frustrating.

He also makes friends with other kids in the ward and his friendships are legitimately helpful to his recovery, which is also really really important. It wasn’t just like “the healthy people know what's best for you and will rid you of this”, but the other mentally ill kids were integral to him gaining a better understanding of himself. Psychotic people don’t just need to be “cured”; they need to be understood, and they need to have their experiences validated. The kids related to each other in their own psychotic ways and that was everything. The way I think as a schizophrenic person can be so alienating and so lonely among non-psychotic people because they don’t understand and usually don’t try to, and I was so happy that the MC was given a chance to find comraderie from people in a similar boat.

In particular, the MC deals with delusions of granduer and reference where he feels he can see all of these signs and patterns, like they’re great truths about the world, but he can’t articulate them and people don’t understand, and he has to get it out of his head because the weight of it is consuming him even though he doesn’t really know what it is and I just relate to that feeling so, so much. But when he gets to the ward, he talks to the other kids and finds that they understand the feeling, and they talk about it, and it was just so important to me in particular that the author gave them room to do that.

Here is my biggest criticism I have a huge issue with how a particular kid in the ward was written. One of the kids is a survivor of pretty significant trauma, and during group sessions she’s notorious for relating the conversation back to her trauma and describing it in detail over and over again, and the other kids see this as annoying. Later in the book the mc crudely tells her to get over it, and the group mediator actually praises him for this after the session.

This is infuriating because 1) it paints a trauma survivor as selfish and melodramatic, which is something we endure from society already, 2) it assumes that trauma survivors, a KID no less, is likely to freely talk about their experiences to get attention or to be self-destructive, which is just not the reality–real life trauma survivors are forced to be silent and so we internalize our pain and are acutely self-conscious of being overdramatic or attention-seeking, and 3) it assumes that yelling at a kid with PTSD is gonna make them get over it. This didn’t take up much of the book so I’m only a bit mad about it, but it was pretty upsetting to read in the moment and I’m disappointed that an otherwise humanizing story about schizophrenia would demonize a trauma survivor so readily.

I also felt annoyed with how the parents were always visibly uncomfortable and upset around their son during his break, which is a common trope where parents of psychotic kids “grieve” for their kids pre-break and make their child’s suffering all about them. They only seem to connect with him as a person when he’s not actively psychotic.

But, really. All-in-all it was accurate, it was sensible, the structure of the chapters and the writing was easy for me to digest, and it was the only “schizophrenic kid has a Beautiful Mind-style psychotic break and goes to a ward” type of plot i’ve ever seen written well, ever.

TL;DR if you need a decent story about a schizophrenic to heal from all the awful stuff the media usually writes about us, I really recommend it. It’s not 100% perfect, and I really wish there was more fiction about schizophrenic people not necessarily about us being in hospitals and going crazy, just us existing as much as non-schizophrenics; but this is still a much, much-needed step away from the insane killer trope, and I really cherished that. I'd give it five stars if it weren't for the weird victim-blaming with the trauma-survivor girl in the ward.