His struggle, his strength, and his journey. Eventually, we do find out what Caden’s diagnosis is, but it’s never made the main point of the story. I loved the commentary on trying to fit each person into a bracket of mental illness, even though every single case is so different from all the previous ones, and throwing those words around can be very harmful in its own way. Caden was the character I really grew to care about. I’ll leave the link here if you’d like to check it out.ģ – Following Caden so closely for over 300 pages, it’s only natural that I got attached to him and wanted things to improve. I found his interview with “ The Horn Book” very interesting. It turns out that Neal Shusterman’s son showed signs of mental illness when he was a teen, and that’s where the story came from. It allows us to see into the mind of someone who goes through a very complicated period of time, of someone whose mind plays tricks and shows things in a different light.Īs I was reading this book, I kept wondering if any of this was actually written from a real study or someone else’s experience. This intentional confusion of the readers makes this novel even more powerful. We meet them all pretty early in the story, all except the Captain. Only after 40%, I started to see connections between the ship parts and real life.Įvery single person on the “ship” corresponds to the people in the hospital. We are thrown into this dual perspective from the very beginning, not really knowing what is happening, what is real or not, and what can we trust. Written in such an honest way that I couldn’t help but feel aghast by everything that was happening in Caden’s mind.ġ – The book is split into two different realities – the real one (or as real as Caden’s perspective is) and his delusions/dreams or hallucinations (I haven’t figured out what exactly it was) where Caden would appear on a ship taking a course to the Challenger Deep. This is essentially a descent into the mind of someone with a very severe mental illness.

All thoughts and opinions expressed herein are my own and not influenced by the company or its affiliates in any way.įrom reading the blurb you’d never know how dark this book actually is. Thank you Netgalley and Walker Books for a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Challenger deep book