It's Kind of a Funny Story
Ned Vizzini's It's Kind of a Funny Story is a YA novel rooted in the author's own real five day stay at the Methodist Hospital adult psychiatric ward in Brooklyn. Fifteen year old Craig Gilner has clawed his way into Manhattan's hyper competitive Executive Pre Professional High School and immediately begun unraveling under the weight of homework, peer pressure, and an SSRI he keeps deciding not to take. One night the suicidal ideation he has been managing all summer becomes specific enough that he calls a crisis line and walks himself into the emergency room, only to be admitted to the adult psychiatric unit because the teen ward is closed for renovation. Over five days Craig befriends a former Egyptian sailor, a transgender artist, and a brilliant girl named Noelle, and he begins to understand that the path back to health is neither prestigious nor glamorous. Vizzini writes with disarming humor about depression, and the book has helped many young readers feel less alone.
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What you might want to know about It's Kind of a Funny Story
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
After a night of suicidal thinking, fifteen-year-old Craig walks into a Brooklyn ER and signs himself onto an adult psychiatric ward. The teen wing is closed for repairs. The week he spends there reroutes his life.
Yes. Ned Vizzini drew on his own brief 2004 hospitalization for clinical depression. The novel is fictional but closely tracks his experience, including the psychiatric ward setting and the breakthrough during his stay.
Yes. A 2010 film adaptation starring Keir Gilchrist, Emma Roberts, and Zach Galifianakis was released. Vizzini was involved in the production. He died by suicide in 2013, three years after the film.
It's Kind of a Funny Story was written by Ned Vizzini, published in 2000 by sjsjah.
It's Kind of a Funny Story is 444 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, It's Kind of a Funny Story takes most readers 7 to 10 hours to finish.
It's Kind of a Funny Story is a standalone novel by Ned Vizzini, not part of a series.
It's Kind of a Funny Story is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
