Challenger Deep

This book is so good, really interesting view of schizophrenia. Amazing that he wrote this for his son, and that he had his son help him write and share his experience to make this book.

One of my favorite tropes - friends to more - and I'm here for it! Love Edie and Kalle (although, to be fair, he has a special talent to muck things up spectacularly)!

I really liked reading this. at first i picked it up and put it down a few times just thinking about continuing cause i wasn’t totally sure what was going on. but once i sat down and kept on it i really enjoyed myself. i liked the perspective it gave about mental illness and advocacy. i also enjoyed how everything came together well and not in a boring or forced way. also writing about two completely different settings even if one isnt there is really entertaining m.

In the beginning i wasn't sure if the writing style in this book was for me. I know going in it was part of an expedition to the Challenger Deep and part a teen boy's life as he starts to be affected by mental illness. The expedition side was what had me hesitant as it was absurd but i just accepted nothing was going to make sense to me and at the 30% mark I was gripped by the story and at the 50% mark the connection of two stories was finally started to be made clear. I recommend this to anyone who wants an insight into the mind of what it's like to have a mental illness like schizophrenia that alters your perception of what is real and true.

I love the strong character development and how the main character along with his support system copes with him having schizophrenia. As someone who doesn't have schizophrenia, I am glad that the author gives a realistic portrayal of what it's like to have schizophrenia. I also enjoy the drawings and it strengthens the story because I can see the main character's delusions and hallucinations.

Caden Bosch is your average fifteen year old. He is likable, has friends, and can generally get on with his classes and his peers without an issue. The book starts at the beginning of his first psychotic episode, but Caden doesn't know it. Shusterman expertly navigates us from reality to the way that Caden is perceiving reality in each chapter. Readers follow Caden's descent into episode very slowly. It starts with his inability to interact with his friends to paranioa about his peers to wandering around the city pacing to the final moment that his family realizes they are unable to help him. Anyone who has loved someone or experienced mental illness can relate to this slow decline and then immediate rush into danger. The highs and lows are painfully, accurately portrayed.

Caden jumps back and forth between knowing that he is in a mental rehabililtation center to believing that he is a crewmate on a ship of misfits led by a one-eye Captain and his talking parrot. As the story goes on, you begin to realize that the people on the ship are representative of real people in Caden's life. There is a content warning for suicide in this book as Caden struggles with his own ideas of suicide as do other characters in the story.

This story is punctated by the author's note that his writing was informed by his experience with his son who suffers from a mental disorder. The pictures drawn in the book are by his son and many of Caden's friend's phrases are from his son's poetry. This is a deeply personal and powerful book.

Overall, Challenger Deep has been praised as an accurate portrayal of experiencing a mental illness. It covers topics from how the medications make him feel and work to complexities of group therapy to the relationships he has with his family and friends. As Caden reminds us his greatest fear, “Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug.” Readers intimately see his struggles and you cannot help but cheer for him to put that piece of blue sky back in the puzzle.

Solid 4 1/2. Really well written, maybe the best I've read by him. Haven't seen other books deal with the subject in such an authentic way