It's Kind Of A Funny Story by Ned Vizzini is a contemporary work of young adult fiction focusing on the topic of mental health after the protagonist suffers suicidal ideation. After reading Wildthorn I vowed that this would be the next book I read after the recent and shocking suicide by author Ned Vizzini. Vizzini had toured the country speaking to young adults and teens about suicide and how to work around it and how to cope. It came as such a horrible surprise that he should end his life. Because of this I began the book with a heavy heart...
I've got to be honest, it's not a book that I enjoyed greatly. At the start I found myself feeling rather bored. It's someone's view of their own illness and it was quite a slow build up. It didn't really start to take off for me until many, many chapters in once they were in the hospital.
It's certainly not the most entertaining book I've read about mental health but that said, are books about mental health meant to be a laugh? You got the feeling that it really drew very directly on Ned's own experiences and was therefore a way for him to re-tell a chapter of his life in a way that only he could.
In recent years the book was made into a film adaptation. See the trailer below:
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