Review: Darius The Great Is Not Okay

My Rating: 4/5 stars

Goodreads summary: click here

I really enjoyed this book. I read it in two days and I’m happy to report that yes, yes it did make me cry. This book dove into how it’s like to live with depression and how mental health is perceived in another culture. While mental health is starting to get a lot more rep/attention in our modern day world, there are some cultures where the stereotyping/stigmatism is still prominent.

Darius trying to explain his depression to his Persian grandparents is a perfect example of how people still find it hard to understand depression and even accept it as a real problem.

Darius’ relationship with his grandparents is done wonderfully and feels very authentic to me. It’s a weird thing, to have such strong feelings and love for someone who’s all the way across the world, someone who you don’t see regularly except through a screen. The distance he has towards his grandfather and how he finds it a bit more difficult to connect with him is very realistic. The extremely wholesome closeness he has towards his grandmother is also just as  realistic. While some connections are easily formed between distant family members, sometimes the physical distance does unfortunately add onto the emotional distance.

One of the many things I love in a book are strong family bonds. Darius’ relationship with his younger sister is so precious. I don’t read many books from the perspective of an elder brother who has a younger sister so I found their relationship to be extra wholesome. And his grandma, I LOVE his grandma. It made me think of my own grandma and all I wanted to do while reading this book was to give her a big squeeze.

The only thing I knew about this book before I dove into it is that it has to do with mental health. So I was pretty surprised when I saw how this book also tackled fat shaming. This is where I cried lol. Everything from the way Darius was trying to do his best and keep his father happy while accepting the body he has to the way at dinner, he’d be slyly passed the salad bowl, and even how people would touch him or make insensitive comments, it all rubbed me raw. Darius’ body image is a common theme throughout the story. I appreciated the constant reference to this aspect of Darius because how well it was done but also because it was talking about body image issues in a non-female character, something that’s not so common.

Many things are addressed in the conclusion of this book but some things were left open ended. I just wish that towards the end, we got a bit more closure regarding how Darius’ father constantly came at him about his weight. I don’t know if I should consider this a dislike because this book felt very realistic and realistic books usually don’t wrap up everything in the end. I just wish we had more closure regarding that aspect though. I heard that there’s going to be a sequel out soon or a companion novel so I’m curious to see how this issue is addressed in that book.

The reason why I ended up knocking off a star in my rating is because of some of the writing. It’s the second YA book from a teenage boy’s POV in which I didn’t like the writing because of the overuse of nicknames or code words? I’m not even sure how to describe it lol but it’s just not my preferred writing style.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. Besides what I mentioned above, there are so many good things about this short yet sweet and impactful book. For example, this book provided so much insight into Persian culture/history, I learned a lot but also grew hungry a lot because the FOOD IN THIS BOOK ugh. There’s also an amazing friendship and an exploration into an interracial family.

As always, check for trigger warnings before hand but some of them include: cancer, loss, depression, fat shaming/fat phobia, bullying.

Pick it up and give it a go!