For readers who want to experience an array of different emotions while reading a book, It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini is ideal. This book encompasses passages that will break your heart but also mend it back together with laughter.

Ned Vizzini based this book about his brief stay in a psychiatric hospital. Vizzini’s life had also inspired two of his other books titled Be More Chill and Teen Angst? Naaah…, which are also about mental illness. Main character Craig Gilner is loosely based off of Vizzini himself. Craig was a 16-year-old working nonstop to get into a prestigious high school. He worked himself so hard that his mind was pushed into a downward spiral of depression and anxiety which eventually caused him to contemplate suicide.

Though this book is about a very serious subject, Vizzini does not let the sadness control the story. He incorporates happiness and laughter in at times making the book awkwardly funny and slightly relatable. Girl problems as well as family problems occur, but also tragically funny teen problems that are all too real.

Craig finds his outlet in drawing where he creates beauty out of chaos. He draws to cope, to help with his feelings. His maps, however, were shapes and bridges that all came together to form people. This relates to the theme of the book due to it being about accepting others as they are.

Craig was eventually let out of the hospital and was overall a happier person. Ned Vizzini wrote this book as soon as he got out of the hospital. Even though you can see the building of straight happiness throughout this book, Vizzini himself did not. On December 19th, 2013, Ned Vizzini jumped off of his parents residence, killing himself. He was 32.

It’s Kind of a Funny Story is a beautiful book about a boy who had hope. Vizzini, an amazing writer, put sad but funny events together showing how mental illness can either take over or be taken over. Don’t let mental illness take over. Someone is always there to listen whether you believe so or not.

Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255.