It was kind of a funny story, and kind of a sad story. That's to be expected when you read the back flap and realize that its going to be about a young boy who voluntarily enters himself into a psychiatric hospital after realizing he really wants to kill himself. The protagonist, a young teenage New Yorker, is smart, funny, experimenting with drugs, and oh soooo hard on himself. One thing that I think really drove him to feelings of depression were societal expectations, especially because he comes from a good family. There isn't anyone who couldn't identify with feelings of "not being good enough". The story of his mental breakdown really becomes clear after he gets into a top notch high school (like a Julliard) and realizes that he can't handle the stress. While he has to study for hours and hours, his brilliant peers barely have to listen and they get straight A's.
The patients in the hospital he enters are interesting stories as well, and you try not to let it happen...but it will make you think of
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.
I like reading some of these Young Adult books and I wish I had read some of them when I was going through the evils of high school myself.
One interesting factoid is that the author himself was in a mental institution, and I think that type of first hand experience made this more and move believable (right down to being admitted to being discharged). I have not seen the movie (and probably won't), but I think its always good to read a few books like these once in a while.
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