Trigger warnings: Depression, talk about mental illness and suicide, bullying, racism, illness, unsavory attitudes towards medication for mental illness
Synopsis: Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He's about to take his first-ever trip to Iran, and it's pretty overwhelming--especially when he's also dealing with clinical depression, a disapproving dad, and a chronically anemic social life. In Iran, he gets to know his ailing but still formidable grandfather, his loving grandmother, and the rest of his mom's family for the first time. And he meets Sohrab, the boy next door who changes everything.
Sohrab makes sure people speak English so Darius can understand what's going on. He gets Darius an Iranian National Football Team jersey that makes him feel like a True Persian for the first time. And he understands that sometimes, best friends don't have to talk. Darius has never had a true friend before, but now he's spending his days with Sohrab playing soccer, eating rosewater ice cream, and sitting together for hours in their special place, a rooftop overlooking the Yazdi skyline.
Sohrab calls him Darioush--the original Persian version of his name--and Darius has never felt more like himself than he does now that he's Darioush to Sohrab. When it's time to go home to America, he'll have to find a way to be Darioush on his own.
Review: Darius the Great is Not Okay starts with Darius being bullied and looked down on while he is in America. A family emergency requires him to travel to Iran for the first time. I loved Darius. I related to him a lot. He's fat, he has depression, his relationship with his family isn't great, and he feels displaced. I was surprised at how much I related to Darius. None of the conversations he has with other people felt forced or out of place. I loved Sohrab too. He's a boy Darius befriends in Iran, but the book alludes to them being more than that. Maybe it's because I had a friendship like Sohrab, but everything about their friendship and the struggles they faced felt natural.
This story is about family and appreciating your roots. Darius feels so distant from his Persian identity, but Sohrab helps him to embrace these things. There are also conversations about grief and illness in different ways. The way we see Darius and his dad navigate their mental illnesses while in Iran was handled very well. There seems to be some distaste towards medication throughout this book. That might make some people uncomfortable, so I wanted to point it out.
Beautiful debut with a lot of necessary conversations
5 howls
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