Title: Challenger deep
Author: Neal Shusterman
Format: Paperback
Publisher: HarperTeen
Page count: 308
Release day: April 21st 2015
Series: Standalone
Rating: 4.5 stars
What is it about? (Summary from GoodReads)
Caden Bosch is on a ship that’s headed for the deepest point on Earth: Challenger Deep, the southern part of the Marianas Trench.
Caden Bosch is a brilliant high school student whose friends are starting to notice his odd behaviour.
Caden Bosch is designated the ship’s artist in residence to document the journey with images.
Caden Bosch pretends to join the school track team but spends his days walking for miles, absorbed by the thoughts in his head.
Caden Bosch is split between his allegiance to the captain and the allure of mutiny.
Caden Bosch is torn.
What I thought:
I read Scythe and Thunderhead not so long ago, and I really liked them. So when I say this book in the store I had to buy it and immediately started reading it (which normally never happens haha). So when I went into this book I had no idea it was contemporary or that it was about mental illness.
When you start reading this book you get thrown into chapters told in the ´real world´ and the ´real world in Caden´s mind´, which is really confusing but also really interesting. The weirdness of one side of the story really reminded me of Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, which is a good thing in my opinion!
I really love how you slowly start to see the connection between the two different worlds described. I think Neal Shusterman did a really good you keeping the reader in the dark trying to figure out what is going on.
I absolutely loved Neal Shusterman´s writing, in both this book and the arc of scythe´s series. Those are both really different books, and his writing is different in both of them. But they way he writes fits the story so well and makes it, in this book, really realistic! Sometimes there are some sarcastic comments, and I love them!
‘’You were not given permission to have talent,’ the captain tells me. ‘It may offend the other crewmen who have none.’’
‘I go to the bathroom with a Mountain Dew and take three pills, feeling to rebellious to take the recommended dose of two.’
I´ve never read a book about mental illnesses before, but I´m really glad that I did! There are lots of people with mental illnesses, and reading a book about it makes me understand it a little bit more. I guess you will never fully understand it if you don´t have the illness yourself, but every little bit will help! I think this was a really good book for learning a bit about it, since we are seeing it develop, seeing it at the worst part, see how it is for Caden inside his head, also see a little bit about how it is for the ‘outsiders’, but also see the struggle with getting out of it again!
Also I really need to read more Neal Shusterman!
Favourite quote:
I feel this is really relatable nowadays!
‘We are, however, creatures of containment. We want all things in life packed into boxes that we can label. But just because we have the ability to label it, doesn’t mean we really know what’s in the box’
Advise for:
I have no idea if this book has good mental health rep, but it is a good book if you, like me, don’t know much about mental health but want to learn about how it is.
Come talk to me!
What are some good mental health book in your opinion? (Maybe I will read them)