It's Kind of a Funny Story

Vizzini, Ned. It's Kind of a Funny Story. New York: Baker and Taylor, 2006.


Genre: Realistic Fiction

Intended Audience: Ages 15 and older

Personal Reaction to the book:  I wanted to love this book.  I really did.  I enjoyed the writing, I enjoyed the plot, I even loved some of the lines enough to share them with others, but it was a difficult book for me to want to get back to reading.  The plot was enjoyable, Craig finds he is depressed and wants to kill himself, he checks himself into the hospital for suicide watch after calling the suicide hotline.  Craig makes friends while there and realizes that life is worth living, ending the book with the line “So now life for real, Craig. Live. Live. Live. Live. Live(Vizinni, 444).” 

The most lasting part of this book was how Vizzini shows whether you live with depression or not sometimes life is about managing, not being cured of our ailments.  All people have problems and part of living is learning how to deal with them.  In the book Craig says to a friend “Everybody has problems.  Some people just hide their crap better than others (Vizzini, 366).  I really appreciate that line because this is one so many people need to hear and one Craig eventually needed to believe in order to decide to live.  

Author Facts: Ned Vizzini was born in 1981 in New York.  In his twenties he spent five days in a psychiatric hospital in 2004 and during the following days wrote this book.  Vizzini struggled with depression for his 32 years and in the end took his life, unable to conquer the thing he wrote about.  

Author Website: Vizinni’s website used to be found at http://www.nedvizzini.com/ but appears to have since been removed.  Information about him can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ned_Vizzini .