A review by intonewrealms
Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

emotional hopeful informative reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

CW: depression; side effects from medication; suicidal thoughts; body confidence issues; (undiagnosed) anxiety; chronic illness 

Darius has always lived in the uncomfortable position of being seen as too different by his American classmates but also too American when compared to other Persians. His mum said she didn’t see any point in speaking Farsi to him growing up but this clearly isn’t truthfully the reason because she has spoken it to his little sister, who is now pretty fluent. That leaves him and his dad united in feeling awkward at family gatherings, but united is perhaps not the word as Darius feels a world away from his dad most of the time too, except when they perform their nightly ritual of watching Star Trek together.

When his babou gets very sick, the family travels to Iran for the first time. Here Darius gets to be the Persian version of himself, Darioush, however it’s still a lot more difficult than he had anticipated. He really loves his sister, in the playing doll tea parties together not just the being a macho older brother way, but he struggles with intense jealousy over the fact that she fits in perfectly both at school in America and in Iran. He’s struggled with depression since he was young, but here in Iran he feels even worse about it because there is constant confusion from those around him about why he is depressed when he has never “had anything bad happen to him” and what his pills are doing to his body.

It was really interesting to learn about Persian culture and Farsi both from what Darius already knew and what we learn with him. I really like the content of this book but I just didn’t really vibe with the style in which it was told. The fact that there was so much repetition really pulled me out of things, and I didn’t personally like the way Darius described everything as ‘level _’, again it was very repetitive. However, that could just be something that bugs me personally, and I am very invested in the story, and intrigued about the next one as I know that it deals more heavily with his sexual identity, which wasn’t ever really a focus here as that wasn’t a part of Darius that he was really exploring at this stage of his life.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings