Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

Book on Amazon

Caden Bosch is a teen who has been experiencing some strange things in his life. He joined the track team solely to walk for hours. He has been having strange dreams. And most strangely of all is the ship with the captain, the parrot, and the shipmates. He is torn between his loyalty between the captain and the mutiny of the parrot.
But he is also torn between reality and his own world.


Without explaining too deep [heh. pun], this book does AN AMAZING JOB of symbolizing what it's like to live with a mental illness, and the more I read and discovered how the ship actually worked, I found myself REALLY tied to all of the characters and I understood their struggles with their mental illness and how people felt towards them. As someone who struggles, I empathize with them.

The only problem is that readers might find the beginning very confusing. The pictures are also confusing, but they are VERY important.

Overall, I give this book a 5/5! I'd give it an extra star for it's proper portrayal of mental illness, but alas, I can not. So congrats from a mental illness awareness standpoint.