When he was a kid, Craig loved drawing maps. For over a year, fifteen-years-old Craig Gilner has been spending most of his time preparing for possible admission to Executive Pre-Professional, a highly selective and elite high school in New York City. And when he wasn't doing that, he was with his best friend Aaron, smoking pot and pinning for Nia, Aaron's girlfriend. With that being done, however, Craig suddenly finds himself at a loss. He's working hard at his school, but he's only scoring 93%, while Aaron, who doesn't even try, is still top of the class.
Unable to cope and lacking strategies that would help him get through, Craig develops suicidal thoughts and ends up developing an eating disorder. Caught in a vicious circle, Craig ends up checking himself into a psychiatric facility near his house. Lacking room in the juvenile wing, Craig is placed instead on the 6th floor with adults, and he begins dealing with the issues that led him here. Onsite, he meets the other patients, including Noelle, another teenager who severely maimed herself to deal with the abuse she was suffering. Can Craig reconnects with his life and achieve some stability?
A running commentary of the events leading to and including his hospitalization told from Craig's perspective, It's Kind of a Funny Story provides a hilarious yet sobering look at mental illness and the pressures that children and teenagers experience in competitive educational environments. Readers will be cheering Craig on as he works through his problems and hope that he and Noelle are able to tame each other on their way out of the psychiatric unit. Fans of An Abundance of Katherines will appreciate the messy resolution that occurs at the end of the story.
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