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Young Adult Fiction. Young Adult Literature. HTML:Darius doesn't think he'll ever be enough, in America or in Iran. Hilarious and heartbreaking, this unforgettable debut introduces a brilliant new voice in contemporary YA. Winner of the William C. Morris Debut Award �Heartfelt, tender, and so utterly real. I�d live in this book forever if I could.� �Becky Albertalli, award-winning author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He�s a Fractional Persian�half, his mom�s side�and his first-ever trip to Iran is about to change his life. Darius has never really fit in at home, and he�s sure things are going to be the same in Iran. His clinical depression doesn�t exactly help matters, and trying to explain his medication to his grandparents only makes things harder. Then Darius meets Sohrab, the boy next door, and everything changes. Soon, they�re spending their days together, playing soccer, eating faludeh, and talking for hours on a secret rooftop overlooking the city�s 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. Adib Khorram�s brilliant debut is for anyone who�s ever felt not good enough�then met a friend who makes them feel so much better than okay.… (more)
User reviews
Darius' maternal grandparents are Iranian,
Almost the entire book takes place in Iran, but the humanity of the story is universal. Coping with clinical depression; trying to live up to a father's wishes; loving people but not knowing how to tell them or show it; feeling inadequate; finding a friend who truly seems to understand you... These are what this book is about. It moved me deeply, and although I am about a Persian as a cheeseburger, I related to Darius and his family completely.
"It's okay not to be okay."
Okay, so this was strangely really relevant to my entire life. And to my family reunion vacation I was on as I read this. Creepy.
Thing number
Thing number two: Darius struggles with depression and friendships. My entire life I've had friend issues, and recently (last night actually), I was even talking to my sister and her husband about this very topic.
Thing number three: Darius has a grandfather who he cannot really connect to who is terminally ill. While not my grandfather, and not someone I never met in person (I actually grew up going to his house every summer), my mom's brother in law is grandfather aged and a very similar person to Babou, which made my heart just seize every time he was on the page. And I was literally with my Tío last night. Creepy, right?
Now, here's some things that are more book review and less me talking about how Adib Khorram might be my stalker.
The book is written in a pretty unique, voice heavy narrative style that I really liked but sometimes got a tiny bit in my nerves tbh. It's a debut though so I'll let it slide.
The plot was good, I was really invested, and it read quickly. If I hadn't been at a family reunion, I could have read it in one sitting.
Darius is (as previously made clear) pretty darn relatable. He's awkward and self deprecating, but quirky and likes science fiction and fantasy, particularly Star Trek and The Lord of the Rings.
I loved Mamou!!!!! She's an angel and I want her to be my grandma! She's warm! She listens to ABBA! She's perfect!
The one thing I didn't like about this was the instalove friendship (with some borderline homoerotic elements). If you wanted to write a book about homosexuality, you totally could have, Adib. The market is definitely there. Why can't guys just be friends? I love friends. I love healthy platonic relationships in literature, because I struggle with healthy platonic relationships. I want a realistic portrayal of fast friends. I don't want insta-friendship. That's "you just have to wait for Mr. Right" ideology and it never works.
All in all, freaking fantastic, but not something that will necessarily astound you tbh. It's great. It's more than okay.
There are lots of things I liked about this one, and I would have loved it, but I couldn't get to a place where I wasn't
This book has received a lot of acclaim and well deserves it. The writing style runs smoothly and easily; Darius's voice feels very authentic both in his speech patterns and his inner running narrative. The other characters also feel realistic and well-rounded on the whole. The author explains some parts of Iranian culture by seamlessly weaving information into the text without ever feeling didactic. Darius's depression is deftly woven into the story, playing a big role but without feeling like a PSA about mental illness. I'm sure that many young readers will be able to identify with Darius's struggles, even if they are not an exact mirror of their own. The story's ending is hopeful without being too 'pie in the sky.'
It's the subtleties and complexities that make Darius the Great a book that stands out. The character voice is strong yet uncertain, and so familiar for anyone who has ever been someone trying to find their place in the world. The friendship is beautiful in its ease, but it's never simple. And the attention to detail in describing setting, including the food, is so lush you feel like you have to be there. It's a wonderful book that I highly recommend.
I love the way that we get taken along with Darius as he hints for the place he fits and struggles to figure out how to meld his Persian and
In addition to being heart-warming, this was educational! I learned some Farsi and a lot of things about Iranian history!
In time Darius learns to like himself and appreciate even more the place where his namesake came from. His relationship of pure adoration towards his little sister changes and his mutual understanding with his dad becomes something deeper.
While I’m not Persian nor biracial, I could relate to Darius feeling like an imposter when it came to claiming his culture. I struggle with mental illness as well and it’s also looked down upon in my culture. It was really nice to see how he was willing to embrace the culture when sometimes I read stories where teens are reluctant to claim their culture because they’ve been ‘Americanized’.
Sometimes is hard to understand where you stand with your parents when you see how they act or treat your other siblings. It broke my heart whenever Darius felt that his dad felt like his little sister was a do-over from the mistakes he made with Darius. The road to bonding with your parents stretches into years before you start to realize that most of the time it’s not that one or the other is the favorite but like yourself, they have a different kind of relationship with everyone. It was lovely to see that family dynamic being played out in this story.
Did this young man have problems and go through so much?! Sure, however, he was so much tougher than I have seen a lot of young men handle themselves lately.
I found the book real, fascinating and
I would recommend this book to anyone who needs an uplift. Someone who wants to disappear into a reality that is so different from their own and yet so similar you could stay in the pages and wander around Iran hopefully without being harmed.
Read this book, you won’t forget it.
"It's okay not to be okay."
Okay, so this was strangely really relevant to my entire life. And to my family reunion vacation I was on as I read this. Creepy.
Thing number
Thing number two: Darius struggles with depression and friendships. My entire life I've had friend issues, and recently (last night actually), I was even talking to my sister and her husband about this very topic.
Thing number three: Darius has a grandfather who he cannot really connect to who is terminally ill. While not my grandfather, and not someone I never met in person (I actually grew up going to his house every summer), my mom's brother in law is grandfather aged and a very similar person to Babou, which made my heart just seize every time he was on the page. And I was literally with my Tío last night. Creepy, right?
Now, here's some things that are more book review and less me talking about how Adib Khorram might be my stalker.
The book is written in a pretty unique, voice heavy narrative style that I really liked but sometimes got a tiny bit in my nerves tbh. It's a debut though so I'll let it slide.
The plot was good, I was really invested, and it read quickly. If I hadn't been at a family reunion, I could have read it in one sitting.
Darius is (as previously made clear) pretty darn relatable. He's awkward and self deprecating, but quirky and likes science fiction and fantasy, particularly Star Trek and The Lord of the Rings.
I loved Mamou!!!!! She's an angel and I want her to be my grandma! She's warm! She listens to ABBA! She's perfect!
The one thing I didn't like about this was the instalove friendship (with some borderline homoerotic elements). If you wanted to write a book about homosexuality, you totally could have, Adib. The market is definitely there. Why can't guys just be friends? I love friends. I love healthy platonic relationships in literature, because I struggle with healthy platonic relationships. I want a realistic portrayal of fast friends. I don't want insta-friendship. That's "you just have to wait for Mr. Right" ideology and it never works.
All in all, freaking fantastic, but not something that will necessarily astound you tbh. It's great. It's more than okay.
Do note, however, that despite it being shelved as LGBTQ by a number of folks, there is no explicit queer content, although the subtext is pretty strong.
character-driven novel with realistic portrayal of how depression
Parental note: Penises come up in conversation after other boys observe that his is uncircumcised in the locker-room, and the main character refers obliquely to his refraining from going "number three" in his grandmother's house. There is a joke about "hel/Hell" and "damming/damning," and another joke about literal dog "shit."
Though the book deals with bullying, political controversy, death and decline of elderly, LGBTQ themes, and deals with mental health, I don't find any of it concerning for teens to read. I think books that realistically deal with the real-life issues provide both a blueprint and a support system for teens who encounter these issues every day. We can not shield our young adults from real life, so we might as well provide them with resources to help them work through life in a sensitive manner.
What I liked... I wanted to read Darius the Great Is Not Okay because I knew it tackled mental illness, religion, and Star Trek. That's enough to make an easy sell with me. Of the three topics, I thought Khorram's approach to religion was the least simplistic: I didn't feel like he was trying too hard to constantly explain matters of faith to the reader, and this is a huge plus. I also enjoyed how the author handled the various relationships within this story. The bonds that Darius shared with his parents, grandparents, and friend (Sohrab) were explored with some care and introspection, providing the reader with different approaches to each.
What I didn't like so much... There were three elements I saw repeated here that I often see in stories written for a younger audience. And of course, they annoyed me. The first was the repetitiveness. There's this thing in children's and YA books where the same terms and phrases have to be drilled into the reader's brain. I don't know why this is, but it's a thing. One such phrase in Darius the Great... (though there were several) was "soulless minions of orthodoxy." I love that the author gave a nod to Deep Space Nine (my favorite of the Trek series), particularly when the Trek in this novel is very TNG-centric, but there's a point when it's excessive--and that was probably the third utterance of the aforementioned phrase.
The other two patterns I saw in this novel was a need to simplify everything (I know the average reader may not be not fully developed, but must everything be explained?) and a primary focus on plot (this story was better than many, but it was still very plot-centric). But see, here I go being nitpicky...
Overall, I thought Darius the Great... was a better-than-average modern YA (yet seemingly written for a not-quite-YA audience?) novel. It tackles some important topics, even if these subjects are heavily coated in sugar for easier swallowing. I almost gave it four stars. And yet, it never takes on the subject that the book seems to be tiptoeing around the whole time... Perhaps I was looking for something that wasn't meant to be there, but I can't help but feel the character of Darius was not allowed to say what he really wanted to say in these pages.
Adib Khoram’s novel presents a very different perspective on many things we know from novels. First of all, it is not an immigrant who comes to the US and has to adjust, but vice versa, an American boy, who even though he has a Persian mother is not speaking any Farsi, who discovers a country and its people of the Middle East. Khoram doesn’t play on clichés here, luckily, Darius does not come with too many ideas about his mother’s native country and enters it rather open-mindedly. Additionally, Darius is at the age where he could have his first girl-friend, but it is not a girl he meets and falls for, but a boy with whom he makes friends. And thirdly, the novel does not present a happy-end where everything is cured and everyone is fine. Darius still suffers from depression and has to fight for every little step in his life. Just travelling to Iran and back does not change everything.
I really enjoyed reading to book. Most of all because it gave a lot of interesting insight in the life in Iran, but also because it doesn’t pretend that life is easy and that everything can be fixed. None of the characters is perfect, they all make mistakes and they all feel awkward at times. In this respect, it is very authentic and convincing. I think it is great for teenagers who struggle with fitting in since the main message for me was that we all at times feel like outsiders and it is absolutely ok, not to fit in and to feel sad at times.