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Jun 26, 2019bezoarbezoarbezoar rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
So this book is great. And for the most part, I really loved it. But there were pieces missing that I felt could have pushed this over the top and made it even better. There are some serious hints at Darius being gay but it is never explicitly stated. I understand that the author was wanting to write about the effects of depression and not about sexuality, but I feel that a book about a queer, mixed-race teenager with mental health issues would have been much better than several ambiguous hints about whether or not Darius is into guys. The parental/family relationship stuff feels very genuine, and I think the author did an excellent job of portraying how relationships can be strained because of depression. I found myself chafing at the constant insertions of "quirky" descriptions for events/people/etc. To me it felt more like the author was trying to sound like a teenager than actually writing like one. It is easy to draw lines between this book and Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, and perhaps the biggest thing they have in common is that OH MAN do the narrators annoy me. There is no particular reason for this. I have had depression my whole life, I take medication for it, but yeesh something about Darius kind of rubbed me the wrong way.