Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

I have a confession to make. I get very attached to and maybe too emotionally invested in fictional characters. And I am ok with that.

I love Darioush (the Iranian form of Darius' name). I wanted to hug him, to bake him some cookies and tell him he can have cookies and salad, life is about balance (an area I need to learn to practice what I preach about), and to tell him he is ok and normal is overrated.

This was such a lovely book. There were lots of geeky references to LoTR and Star Trek. It was moving and sad and happy and important.

So many young people (and not so young) have some level of clinical depression or some other form of mental health diagnosis. There has been for so long, for too long, a stigma attached to it that asking for help has become almost as painful if not more so than the diseases themselves. I feel like Darius' story might help some with that.

I truly believe that ALL OF US, everyone, has at one time or another not felt completely comfortable in our own skin, regardless of our mental health. We have all wondered about where we fit in and look for that place of belonging. Some of us are lucky and find it easily others struggle for a lifetime. Darius The Great Is Not Ok is about that journey and the pain and misunderstandings in our own heads and between us and our peers and family that can come from this misfit, broken feeling.

I truly appreciated the Afterword and Adib sharing his own struggle with depression. And I appreciated his mention of how exhausting and difficult it is for both the person with it and their loved ones and caregivers. As the parent of a child (well not for long, she will be 18 in less than 2 months) with a mental illness I can attest that it is so very exhausting but you keep going anyway, even when you feel like you can't.

Oh and I can't end without saying how much I enjoyed the descriptions of the customs and places Darius encountered when he went to visit his grandparents in Iran. Adib writes so well and in such a conversational and descriptive way that I could see what Darius saw. It was wonderful.

This was just such a moving read and one that will stay with me now forever. You need to read it too. Seriously!! Trust me.

(Finished August 31, 2018)