Loved it. A thought-provoking, well-written book dealing with a difficult subject. Caden (14) struggles to deal with mental health problems until his parents commit him to a psychiatric unit. There he switches between the real world and his dream world. It sounds confusing but it isn't. Heartfelt and well researched, I would recommend it without question.

Heart-wrenchingly beautiful is all I can say.

This is YA literature at its absolute best – raw, touching, funny, and real.

I dove headfirst into the story two pages in. Though it might be a bit confusing at first, you quickly start to see the similarities between the "reality" and the "dreams".

The way Shusterman managed to transcribe what a person suffering from mental illness feels like, what life is like, is just extremely on point. It’s up there with Vazzini’s It’s Kind of a Funny Story. You just know it’s something he’s lived through (though indirectly) and the rightness of the words, how heartfelt they are, is the best proof there can be.

I would usually write longer reviews, but this has taken all the words out of my brain, transforming them into a bunch of raw feelings. It’s simply brilliant, and deserves to be read by every single person who’s ever suffered or seen someone else suffer.
If you find yourself hesitating to pick this novel up, don’t hesitate anymore – it’s a true masterpiece.

Challenger Deep was rereleased on August 6th by Walker Books this year but was originally released back in 2015. It is a captivating read about mental illness completely from the mind of young 15 year old Caden. 

This book is about a mental illness that isn't easily understood, schizophrenia. It is an illness that most people also have a different view of. So I am glad that books like Challenger Deep exist where it shares various aspects of the illness from the person who has it. All too often do we get the view from people nearby the person and that just does not show well enough how a mental illness like schizophrenia works. 
It is not an own voices book however. Shusterman's friend and his son had schizophrenia as shared at the back word of the book. It does show in little things (the conversation where Caden realizes his parents suffer too for instance) but I didn't find that jarring.

Challenger Deep shows it all. The delusions, the anxiety, the paranoia, the complete different world that Caden has created for himself. It creates a heavy read. Shusterman manages to weave a chaotic but clear image of what schizophrenia was like for Caden as we slip with him between the reality and his alternate world on the ship. It shows parallels between the alternate world and the reality. It shows his fear, his detachment from reality.  Moments of clarity and moments of setback. 

Caden is hospitalized throughout it and I love how the books shows the relationships he builds with the other patients, therapists and psychiatrists. No matter how often you share what it is is like, rarely do outsiders get it. It makes sense for a bonding to happen between patients, especially at this age. 

I appreciated immensely that the book touched upon how people expect you to take meds and then be 'better' and that is not how that works. Or that mental illnesses very often really can't be cured, are reoccurring and have to be managed. That is realistic world for many of us struggling with our mental health.  

I do not have schizophrenia but I do have depression and anxiety and I have struggled with OCD tendencies in the past. I resonated a lot with portions of this and it was also a confronting read in that regard. Yet I will certainly recommend this book to others.

3.5 stars

I started this a while ago and picked it back up today, powering through to the end. This was an ambitious and brave project by Neal Shusterman as it plunged the reader from page one into a teen's mind amidst a psychotic episode as he experienced severe mental illness.

The protagonist, Caden thought he was on a ship with a mundane task as part of the crew, at the same time, there was some awareness of family life, school life and someone who was out to kill him. It was a confusing start, if I'm honest, I didn't know up from down and the chapters were really short, adding to that abrupt feeling. However, I did settle into the read more the second time I picked it up.

Having some professional experience of delusional states, I realised very quickly how well Shusterman had assembled this character, his delusional world. The world on the high sea was actually quite engaging after a while, but I was constantly looking for the chinks of reality in his sea-life, what might be analogy for what was going on in real life. I did find some ideas of reality in his imagined world; it was all pretty tragic.

I have to say this was discomforting reading, seeing a young man in crisis like this was not easy. Shusterman did not shy away from this theme and I commend him for this. I did however find the pacing slow and difficult to keep going with at time. There were chinks of hope though that helped me push through.

I don't think this is a read that everyone will appreciate but I do think some will identify with or be curious about this experience that some young people go through. I also think this could be triggering for some readers, so do look closely at the blurb and reviews if you have experienced significant mental illness.

Thank you to Walker Books for this early review copy.

Such a powerful novel about mental illness, Challenger Deep explores what’s it’s like to go through the period of life when your brain tricks you into believing that your delusions and hallucinations are actually real. Written in a way that allows you to understand Caden’s struggles on a deeper level, the story was rich with fantasy elements, that helped to bring the emotions forward.

From reading the blurb you’d never know how dark this book actually is. This is essentially a descent into the mind of someone with a very severe mental illness. Written in such an honest way that I couldn’t help but feel aghast by everything that was happening in Caden’s mind.

1 - The book is split into two different realities - the real one (or as real as Caden’s perspective is) and his delusions/dreams or hallucinations (I haven’t figured out what exactly it was) where Caden would appear on a ship taking a course to the Challenger Deep. We are thrown into this dual perspective from the very beginning, not really knowing what is happening, what is real or not, and what can we trust. Only after 40%, I started to see connections between the ship parts and real life.

Every single person on the “ship” corresponds to the people in the hospital. We meet them all pretty early in the story, all except the Captain.

This intentional confusion of the readers makes this novel even more powerful. It allows us to see into the mind of someone who goes through a very complicated period of time, of someone whose mind plays tricks and shows things in a different light.

As I was reading this book, I kept wondering if any of this was actually written from a real study or someone else’s experience. It turns out that Neal Shusterman’s son showed signs of mental illness when he was a teen, and that’s where the story came from. I found his interview with “The Horn Book” very interesting.

2 - Once you realize that this book is not just a story created by an author, but has such an intimate and deep connection to him, it reads very differently. It becomes even more powerful! I’ve never read anything even similar to this book, and highly recommend it to everyone. Even though YA books made a great leap in the past couple of years and started to include more representation of various mental illnesses, I think this one is the most impressive of all the books I’ve read so far with this theme.

3 - Following Caden so closely for over 300 pages, it’s only natural that I got attached to him and wanted things to improve. Caden was the character I really grew to care about. I loved the commentary on trying to fit each person into a bracket of mental illness, even though every single case is so different from all the previous ones, and throwing those words around can be very harmful in its own way. Eventually, we do find out what Caden’s diagnosis is, but it’s never made the main point of the story. It’s all about Caden. His struggle, his strength, and his journey.

This was such a difficult book to rate, especially after I found out that this was written from Neal Shusterman’s own experience when his son was diagnosed in his teens, and their whole family went through something very similar. In fact, the drawings that are in the book, are all real sketches drawn by his son “in the depths”.

It’s impossible to give this book any less than 5 stars and I’m fascinated by his and his son’s strength to share this experience with others and let them know that “they are not alone”.

Thanks to Netgalley and Walker Books for an ARC of this book.

CW: Mentions of rape, as well as self-harm, suicide, and mental health (schizophrenia).

Challenger Deep is not a new book, but I think it’s getting a re-release, and I can understand why. The first time I heard about this book was through Emmmabooks’ YouTube channel, and I thought it sounded intriguing. And while I almost entirely forgot that I’d heard about the book before requesting it, I’m glad the knowledge came back to me when I first started reading. It’s not often that I encounter books that deal with mental health issues, particularly ones that go in-depth, so it was really interesting to pick up this book for the first time.

But I am kinda glad that I knew a little bit more about the book, going in, than the blurb let on. Because the first 50 pages or so were pretty hard going. Don’t get me wrong, Challenger Deep is just as finely wrought and wonderfully written as everything else I’ve ever read by Shusterman, but it was so confusing and jarring. There are two different narratives, and especially at the start, they don’t seem to intersect very much. It’s hard to read, particularly as the sections are so short. Some were only half a page or so. And I found it just hard to focus on for a while. I found myself having to force myself to keep turning the pages and not put the book down, and in all honesty there were moments when I almost DNF’d it. Not because the writing wasn’t good- it was, only that my brain was starting to get a bit foggy with all the confusion and I didn’t know if I needed to maybe pick it up another time.

And then, slowly, I started to realise a little bit more about what was going on, remembered that I’d heard about this book before, and looked at it with fresh eyes. As difficult as it was to get through, I do think the first section of the novel is really well written. There are a lot of signs that there’s more going on, but at the same time, I thought it was realistic because those signs were just subtle enough that Caden’s struggles with mental health still seemed out of the blue for everyone around him, including himself. While I don’t have a lot of experience with schizophrenia, I have some experience of other mental health issues, and I will say that it’s often surprising to look back on past behaviours and realise that they’re hints that someone is struggling. Caden’s comments that he felt someone was trying to kill him were clever and poignant. And the metaphors, once you begin to understand them, are very clever. As confusing as it was to read about Caden being on a ship with a captain and the crew, it eventually made sense, and I liked how the jarring confusion I had experienced in the first third or so of the book probably replicated some of the emotions Caden was going through as his mental health got worse.

I think the main strength of Challenger Deep is definitely how it forces the reader to experience some of the thoughts and emotions of someone going through a mental health disorder. I know Emma mentioned in her review of the book that she had a different but similar diagnoses to Caden and that Shusterman had masterfully captured what it felt like to be in her head during this period. And while I can’t really speak on this, since I don’t have any experience of schizophrenia, I will say that the book has received a lot of praise for its representation of the condition. Shusterman bases a lot of this off his son’s own diagnosis and real-life experiences of it, which means he seems to have a lot of details down. Obviously, I’m aware that people who have mental health conditions don’t always think or feel or behave the same way, but I think that’s made clear through Caden’s journey too. In fact, that’s one of the key things I took away from the book.

In terms of the writing style, pacing, voice etc, I do feel like Caden’s narrative was a little on the young side, despite having high vocab words. It’s still YA, of course, but if you’re someone who is used to reading on the higher end of YA (18 year-old protagonists for example) you might find it takes a little bit of getting used to, but to me it definitely felt worth it in the end. The pacing is also quite slow, and overall there’s not a massive plot to the book, but again I feel like this is more of a character driven look into Caden’s psychology and journey through his diagnosis, rather than something that’s meant to be punchy and pace-y all the time. The drawings were an excellent touch, and I was very intrigued to learn that they came from the author’s son.

Overall, I’m giving Challenger Deep an 8/10 stars. I thought the narrative was very engaging and did a lot to try and put the reader in the mind space of Caden, and once I got over the confusing, jarring structure, it made a lot of sense. I found it to be a unique and experimental mode of storytelling, and in all honesty I’ve never read anything quite like it before. I’ll definitely be recommending it. It’s not my usual kind of read, and I did find those first few chapters really hard to get through, but ultimately it proved a rewarding novel and I’m pleased I got to read it.

**ARC copy received from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review**
Let me admit from the start that I'm a huge Neal Shusterman fan so I requested this title the second I saw it on NetGalley. I really loved his Scythe series in particular and was expecting the same kind of story but this was a complete departure for him.
I can't say it enough - this is an important read. Teenage mental health (and mental health in general) can be such a taboo subject and we need more authors like Shusterman to tackle in it all its truth. This isn't a romanticised journey at all, it's confusing at times as we try to work out what the main character is experiencing in the real world and in his inside world.
Reading the information at the back, I realise that Shusterman wrote from personal experience within his family. Bravo Mr Shusterman.

Although I struggled to get into the story it is overall a really good book in the alternative way it thinks about mental health.

'Challenger Deep' is a second-person narrative about Caden Bosch; an intelligent, artistic boy, who begins to act strangely, to disappear inside his head, and to fear that his friends and family are plotting against him.

There is also a parallel first-person narrative in which Caden is on a voyage to the Marianas Trench, in a ship led by a charismatic and enigmatic man, known only as 'The Captain', together with a mismatched crew and a rebellious parrot who incites Caden to mutiny.

At first this is an extremely disorientating book—the reading experience is like falling down Alice’s rabbit hole into a world that doesn’t make sense:
“I can’t remember when this journey began…” Caden writes. “Even if I’ve been on board this wooden relic of a ship for years. I’m still fifteen. Time is different here. It doesn’t move forward; it sort of moves sideways, like a crab.”

Halfway through the book there is a shift as the connections between the two narratives become clearer, the stories merge, and the true meaning behind Caden’s journey to Challenger Deep, the deepest point on earth, becomes clear.

I loved the Scythe series, so I was excited to read another novel by Neal Shusterman, and although this is a very different book, it is similarly gripping and thought-provoking. 'Challenger Deep' is an incredibly compassionate, devastatingly honest, but ultimately hopeful perspective on mental illness, written from the author’s own experience as a parent and authenticated by illustrations contributed by his son. Highly recommended.

Thank you, Netgalley and Harper Collins for providing me with an ARC of this book. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Neal Shusterman's Challenger Deep is my first experience with the author, and what an experience it was. I had a hard time reading this book, and now even more of a hard time rating it. I don't know if I'll be able to articulate all my thoughts into this review. This was a difficult read for me in every sense of the word. I had to put it down several times and take breaks in between as well. This book requires patience, strength, and determination to push through. The story is about a young teenage boy Caden who struggles with mental illness. We follow his journey and his decline of his mental health as he shuttles back and forth between his delusions and reality that seems to be far out of his reach. The story is said entirely from Caden's perspective. The chapters filled with reality and delusions bring the situation of mental illness to the forefront. The book will leave you confused, scared, and shocked at the rate at which Caden's mental health declines. His thoughts are scattered, his delusions holding him prisoner. The chaos of the mind pulling Caden deeper into the depths of the unknown will leave the readers heartbroken for his pain. The lines between reality and delusion are so blurred it takes readers and Caden a long time to understand the source of the chaos. I gave the book 4.5 stars. I think this is an important book to read. If you have the strength to read through the book without losing yourself to the chaos, the book will be an informative, educational, and eye-opening experience. Whether it's the slow decline or the abrupt deterioration of a person's mental health, the struggle is real. The author has done a fantastic job of representing the chaos and the delusions. The artwork included in the book was drawn by his son when he was going through his challenging moments. I felt it added more of a personal touch, and it elevated the book as well. This is a raw, honest up-close portrayal of a young boy's decline of mental health and his journey of recovery. This was without a shadow of a doubt one of the most enlightening and life-changing read for sure. I highly recommend checking it out.

I found this book quite confusing to start with but as the story progresses you soon realise the connections and what is "reality", a great depiction of mental illness and highly addictive reading. Some really great characters too.

eARC provided by NetGalley , thank you to NetGalley and Walker Books. All opinions are my own.

A heart-breaking and tender contemporary YA that brings to light important mental health issues with illustrations by the authors son Brendan, who brought real life inspiration as he himself, was diagnosed at 16.

THE FEELS
description

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman (spoiler free reviews)
Standalone
Publish Date: August 6th 2020
(First published April 21st 2015)
Cover Rating: 8/10
Young Adult - Contemporary – Fiction – Mental Health Awareness

Firstly the cover is a boy’s head upside down, and I just realized that. It’s stunning.

SHORT SYNOPSIS:
Caden Bosch is a high school student and keen artist, when his behavior starts to suddenly change; he starts to become absorbed with the thoughts in his head that he doesn’t quite understand. But Caden Bosch is also on a ship headed for the deepest point on Earth, a designated artist set to document the journey.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
This book has been dipped in love. You can feel it off every page and it’s beautifully crafted. This comes from me- who was probably one of the few people that did not really enjoy Scythe all that much. The chapters are short and the artwork by Neal’s son Brendan is really enjoyable to look at and reminds you this was a real journey for their family that he took inspiration from.

"Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug." This quote is so very very true.

The chapters are really short and well developed as we follow Cadens’s journey externally in the physical world and internally in his mind. A part of me wishes that we went through the very realness of this journey with Neal and his family but I guess its easier to turn it into fiction and craft a story that takes elements but isn’t as personal. I respect that. I just found myself more interested in the actual journey of Caden and not so much the Challenger Deep sea-faring aspect, even though it was sort of intertwined- it just did not work for me. I do however understand why the book was done in this way.

Over all this was a brilliant story and I am really impressed at how realistic Caden felt. It could be your brother, your son, your friend and Caden's feelings are very true to how this process feels in real life Neal has said.

IS IT WORTH IT?
Definitely. I would really recommend this book to everyone, young and old. Its so easy to judge when even the idea, is so alien and foreign to us. This book is raw, powerful and sad - so understand that there are some sensitive issues that are discussed, but everything is described in a very real and honest way.

Rating: 3.9

trigger warnings; mental illness, attempted suicide, talk of self harm, inpatient treatment, medication.

I have truly wanted to read Challenger Deep for years and now that it’s finally being released in the U.K. I’m so thankful that I’ve gotten to read it.

This book is truly one of the most intense, harrowing, real and raw novels I’ve ever read about mental illness. This book is truly an incredible one. At the start, it was a little jarring switching between the scenes at sea and the scenes in the “real world” but I got used to it and when it all started to come together I found myself truly loving this novel. Well, I feel like loving isnt the right word because this novel was so real and harrowing because it is real, this book was written because the authors son has the same condition the MC suffers from and that gave the novel so many more layers. I encourage you look yo own voices reviewers for the representation but having said that, remember everyone copes with these things differently and as the book says, no two people go through exactly the same thing when it comes to their mental illness and this is a story about how his son in particular suffered.

Overall, this novel is truly fantastic and deserves all of the praise and love that it gets. If you are looking for a mental health novel I would definitely suggest reading this one. Not only does it really raw and real but it also has some of the best and most beautiful quotes in it and I feel truly privileged that I’ve read it.

‘Challenger Deep’ is a brilliant exploration of what it’s like to be a teenager with psychosis. Told in first person, it chronicles the insidious development of mental illness and its impact – on school, family, and the individual. Alongside this, there is a story about a ship on a quest to the Marianas Trench, with the narrative alternating between the two. The purpose of this second storyline is not immediately clear, but as more is revealed the two cleverly intersect. Each plotline provides relief when the other gets too heavy – this isn’t a book that shies away from the dark parts of mental illness.

The protagonist, Caden, is fifteen and an American schoolkid. He’s always been a smart, social kid, the type to flit effortlessly between friend groups and fit in anywhere. He’s an artist, spending his free time drawing and designing video games with his friends.

The protagonist, Caden, is fifteen and a crewmember on a ship. He’s the youngest member of the crew, still trying to figure out where he fits in. He shares a cabin with the ship’s navigator, a man with a fondness for alliteration and rhyme who spends his time creating maps and star charts. At night, he dreams about the White Plastic Kitchen, a kitchen full of sparkling white appliances that regularly plays host to monsters.

The highlight of this book is the language. The way Caden’s internal monologue is narrated is gorgeous – often harrowing and disturbing, but written so well it’s hauntingly beautiful. I’ve read other books by Neil Shusterman, but this is undoubtedly where his linguistic skills are at their best.

Shusterman mentions in the notes at the end that he created Caden with collaboration from a family member who suffered from psychosis. Having worked with psychosis patients myself, it seems – from an outsider’s perspective – to be an excellent depiction. His mannerisms, actions, speech, changes in emotions – all of them change with the course of the disease, subtly at first until they become overwhelmingly obvious. Later in the book, Caden also meets other patients with various mental illnesses, and – whilst we only get Caden’s perspective of them – their presentations also feel accurate. I’m always wary of fictional depictions of psychosis because of how much stigma there is against it, but Shusterman avoids all the major pitfalls here.

This isn’t always an easy read, and – despite the very short chapters – isn’t designed to be a quick one. However, in many ways, I think it’s an essential one. Psychosis is hugely misunderstood and very common, affecting at least 1% of the population at some point in their lives. This is one of the best depictions I’ve ever read. If you want to understand psychosis and start breaking down the stigma, this is a good place to start.

Overall, this is a highly recommended young adult book for teenagers and adults alike with an interest in psychology and mental illness.

Challenger Deep is an interesting and insightful book about mental illness following the main character, Caden and his story which is told using two different settings.

The book has short chapters and the setting/story moves very fast between them especially at the start which did make it hard for me to get into the book however once I got over my initial confusion, I did enjoy the book although I did still get confused at times which made me a bit bored however for most of the book, I did find it interesting especially how Caden was thinking and how things linked together.

3/5

I found this book incredibly confusing as it switched between the real world and the very strange boat world (not quite magical realism, but close). I admit I was expecting a more sci-fi/dystopia book than I got - as that's my entire experience of Neal Shusterman's books so far - so the contemporary feel of it was something to get used to.

There are also some sections written in second person chucked in for good measure, which threw me from the story. It also jumps about in time a lot, with strange side tangents that don't seem to add to the story at all.

I was very tempted to DNF this book, because I found it so hard to follow at times. Trying to keep track of what was going on was very difficult. However, I persevered because I think it was supposed to be so disorientating and hard to work out what was real and not to mirror the experience of someone living with schizophrenia.

It takes a long while for the book to put a name to what Carden is experiencing, which felt right for the story - it meant I couldn't bring any of my implicit biases into my reading. I probably would have read it very differently if I had known that.

However, I feel like I didn't get anything out of the reading experience because I was struggling so much to work out what was going on. Part of me thinks I should have just DNF'ed it, but I think it was the right choice not to, as I feel like I know a smidge more about schizophrenia, and am more aware of how different it is in reality to the public perception.

An incredible book, one that I'll not easily forget. Its raw, powerful writing is rich in images and phrases that you have to go back and read again to savour; deservedly the winner of the National Book Award.

The book is based on Neal Shusterman's son Brendan's experience of schizophrenia, hospitalisation and treatment. The story has two threads, both following the main character, Caden Bosch. In one, Caden is on a ship bound for the deepest point on earth - Challenger Deep, the southern part of the Marianas Trench. The ship is populated by a range of vaguely threatening characters - the captain, his parrot, and others, and strange events provoke unpredictable and surreal responses from those on board. In the other thread, we follow Caden as he becomes increasingly ill and is hospitalised. Gradually we become aware of the crossover between the two threads - characters on the ship have their counterparts in hospital - until the final devastating destination is reached.

The writing is interspersed with Brendan Shusterman's drawings that he made while 'in the depths'; they're as haunting as the writing.

A compelling and touching read, clearly written with love. It's a book that demands your full attention - but it deserves it. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Wow this was incredible. Definitely made me feel really anxious when reading which shows just how good the writing was. It gave me so much to think about.

The book centres on Caden, a teenager with a mental illness. It's told through Caden's real life experiences and the thoughts he experiences in his head (set on a ship, heading for the Challenger Deep). The characters cross over between each, and it takes a little while to process the links.

The real life chapters definitely hit me the most. We see Caden slowly begin to struggle more and more, worrying his parents. They take him to a psychologist, but after a while Caden ends up in hospital. We see what his days look like - his appointments with the doctor, his group therapy with a volunteer, his friendships with the other patients. We see his battle to find a medication mix that works for him, and what happens when he doesn't take his medication anymore.

Caden forms a deep friendship with a girl called Callie. At night, sometimes she comes to his bed, but only so he can keep her warm. He also befriends his roommate Hal, and a girl with blue hair with OCD.

Overall this is a super thought-provoking, considerate book. Neal handles mental illness so well, portraying it in a way that does not romanticise, which I've seen in some other YA. All of this whilst having a writing style that makes you feel.

This isn’t the kind of book I’d normally read, but it was a very interesting (and harrowing) portrayal of mental health, will definitely be recommending it!

Challenger Deep is fantastic. It's a very deep and raw exploration of a young boys mental health. It's uncomfortable and could potentially trigger some readers, so caution should be taken when reading. That being said it's a book that forces you to think about and confront as a reader how you view what mental health is. Thought-provoking and necessary read,