Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.Īutumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart their mothers are still best friends. When the depths are revealed with a dream-logic twist and Caden chooses an allegiance, the sea becomes a fine metaphor for a mind: amorphous and tumultuous but ultimately navigable.Īn adventure in perspective as well as plot, this unusual foray into schizophrenia should leave readers with a deeper understanding of the condition. The illustrator, who has struggled with mental illness himself, charts the journey with abstract line drawings that convey Caden's illness as well as his insight. Except in the heights of Caden's delusions, nothing is romanticized-just off-kilter enough to show how easily unreality acquires its own logic and wit.

However, Caden's disorientation and others' unease also make the story chillingly real. Shusterman unmoors readers with his constant use of present tense and lack of transitions, but Caden's nautical hallucination-turned-subplot becomes clearer once his parents commit him to Seaview Hospital's psychiatric unit with its idiosyncratic crew of patients and staff. In an internal reality that’s superimposed over Caden's real life-where his behavior slips from anxiety to hearing voices and compulsively obeying signage-an Ahab-like captain promises riches in exchange for allegiance, while his parrot urges mutiny for a chance at life ashore.

Fantasy becomes reality in an exploration of mental illness based partly on the experiences of the author's son, who is also the book’s illustrator.įor 14-year-old Caden Bosch, his gradual descent into schizophrenia is a quest to reach the bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest place on Earth.

Challenger deep neal