It's Kind of a Funny Story (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: It's Kind of a Funny Story Loretta Gaffney Vizzini, Ned It's Kind of a Funny Story. Miramax/Hyperion, 2006 [448p] ISBN 0-7868-5196-1$16.95 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 9-12 Craig's anxiety about academic performance at his prestigious Manhattan high school slowly transforms him into a shadowy observer of life; he stops eating, contemplates suicide, and eventually checks himself into the psychiatric ward of a nearby hospital. Because the adolescent unit is under construction, fifteen-year-old Craig is hospitalized among a motley crew of mostly adult patients, whose comparatively grimmer problems make him appreciate the relative privilege and ease of his own existence. After he rediscovers a childhood activity of drawing maps of imaginary landscapes and falls for Noelle, a beautiful girl who has scarred her own face, Craig decides upon release to apply to an arts high school and embrace life fully. Though the book follows a predictable trajectory of fairly standard crisis-to-therapy-to-recovery, narrator Craig is a character with enough complexity to give a familiar story some twists. Passive and sweetly naïve in a manner reminiscent of Charlie in Stephen Chbosky's Perks of Being a Wallflower, Craig is generous with other people but not with himself—a mental drill sergeant of his own imagining periodically shames him into eating or berates him for a poor performance, adding to the stream-of-consciousness thread of authenticity. The other psychiatric patients, though, are stock fare, veering dangerously close to caricature—Craig's roommate Muqtada, the melancholy Egyptian, and Noelle, the troubled beauty, are more stepping stones to Craig's recovery than fully realized characters. Though Kaysen's Girl Interrupted offers a more vivid and original explanation of the psych ward, Craig's triumph over depression through the discovery of his latent artistic ability will appeal to fans of therapy and recovery literature. Copyright © 2006 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois