Neal Shusterman is one of our favourite authors, so it was a no brainer for us to dive into a book he’s written about an often stigmatised mental health disorder. Joined by Leah from YA Book Chat, we discuss the experiences of delusions and hallucinations; hospital-based treatments of mental health disorders; and the role of families in recovery.
Mental health topics covered: Schizophrenia, including the experiences of delusions and hallucinations; inpatient (hospital-based) treatment of mental health disorders; suicidal ideation and attempts; the role of families and carers; stigma and shame around psychosis.
Listen to the podcast:
About the Book
Caden Bosch is on a ship that’s headed for the deepest point on Earth: Challenger Deep, the southern part of the Marianas Trench.
Caden Bosch is a brilliant high school student whose friends are starting to notice his odd behavior.
Caden Bosch is designated the ship’s artist in residence to document the journey with images.
Caden Bosch pretends to join the school track team but spends his days walking for miles, absorbed by the thoughts in his head.
Caden Bosch is split between his allegiance to the captain and the allure of mutiny.
Caden Bosch is torn.
About the author
Neal Shusterman is the New York Times best-selling author of over thirty novels for children, teens, and adults. He won the 2015 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature for Challenger Deep-and his novel, Scythe, was a 2017 Michael L. Printz Honor book-and is in development with Universal Studios as a feature film.
Neal has also received several awards and his talents range from film directing, to writing music and stage plays, and has even tried his hand at creating games.
Neal lives in Jacksonville, Florida, but spends much of his time travelling the world speaking, and signing books for readers.
Find Neal on his website.
About Our Guest
Meet Leah from YA Book Chat:
Do you enjoy reading YA books? Are you dying to talk about them and hear what others think about your favorite books? Are you outside of the YA age bracket (like myself) but still enjoy them? Then this is the podcast for you! Join me and my friends, as we discuss our favorite YA books and authors! We’ll chat spoiler-free at the start of each episode, just in case you haven’t read the book yet. Then I’ll give a warning before heading into our spoiler zone. I’ll also have special episodes where I’ll interview YA authors! I’ll be discussing books by Victoria Aveyard, Holly Black, Neal Shusterman, Veronica Roth, Pierce Brown, Marissa Meyer, Suzanne Collins, Veronica Roth, Stephanie Garber, Melissa de la Cruz, and many more!
You can find Leah on Buzzsprout, Instagram, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Our Thoughts
Challenger Deep is a well-considered and compassionate portrayal of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The chapters alternate between fantasy-like scenes of Caden being on a pirate ship headed for the Challenger Deep, the deepest known point of the seabed on Earth, and Caden’s daily life as his symptoms of psychosis affect him more and more. This structure can be disorienting and hard to follow at first (which is intentional by the author), though later it all comes together.
Overall, Neal Shusterman is a master of storytelling, and Challenger Deep provides an empathetic insight into a complex mental health disorder that is often stigmatised and misunderstood.
Discussion Questions
- What was your opinion of the structure of the book – the ship-based chapters, interspersed with Caden’s more lucid chapters?
- Have you read any other books with depictions of inpatient psychiatric treatment? How did Challenger Deep compare?
- Did Caden’s first-person perspective of psychosis challenge any assumptions you might have held about these experiences? Overall, did the book make you think differently about schizophrenia spectrum disorders?
Resources
- Information about schizophrenia spectrum disorders (Healthline).
- Information about early warning signs of psychosis (National Alliance on Mental Illness).
- SANE features stories from people with lived experiences of complex mental health, including schizophrenia.
The Next Book We’ll Discuss Is…
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottesa Moshfegh
Summary: Our narrator should be happy, shouldn’t she? She’s young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?
My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.
Tune in to this episode in September 2023. In the meantime, pick up a copy and read along with us.
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