If you connected with Caden Bosch’s time on the psych ward—those group sessions, art therapy moments, and tentative friendships that feel like lifelines—then you’ll find a kindred honesty in It's Kind of a Funny Story. Like Caden charting his descent toward the trench while navigating hospital routines, Craig’s stay in a New York psychiatric unit balances raw vulnerability with flashes of humor and hope. You get the same close-up feel for treatment, meds, and the awkward, healing work of talking things out—only here through Craig’s candid voice and the fragile camaraderie he builds with other patients.

If the shifting trust you felt in Caden’s narration—torn between the ship’s Captain, the mutinous Parrot, and the fluorescent-lit hospital—pulled you in, The Shock of the Fall offers that same vertigo of uncertainty. Matthew’s voice loops through grief and mania, assembling his story in fragments that make you constantly reassess what’s real, much like how Caden’s voyage to the trench reframes the ward’s everyday details. It’s a heart-wrenching, empathetic portrait of a mind both telling and hiding the truth.

If you were drawn to the way Challenger Deep fractures time—cutting between Caden’s ocean expedition and the hospital corridors—Wintergirls will feel instantly familiar and just as haunting. Lia’s narrative splinters and repeats, much like Caden’s looping calls to the trench, creating a jagged rhythm that puts you inside her struggle. The disorienting jumps, crossed‑out thoughts, and lyrical shards capture the same immersive experience of a psyche in crisis, pushing toward clarity one shard at a time.

If the allegorical voyage—Caden sketching maps, bargaining with the Captain, and facing the trench as a stand‑in for his illness—was your favorite part, A Monster Calls channels that same power. Conor’s nightly visits from a towering yew‑tree monster operate like Caden’s ship: a mythic framework that makes unbearable reality speakable. The stories the Monster tells echo the way Caden’s Parrot twists logic and truth, and the final confrontation carries the same cathartic honesty as surfacing from the depths.

If you admired how Caden claws his way back—reaching for family, sketchbooks, and small routines while the trench keeps calling—Aza’s journey in Turtles All the Way Down delivers a similarly intimate, hard-earned arc. Her spiraling thought patterns mirror Caden’s pull toward the Captain’s orders, yet she learns to build a life around the illness rather than pretending it isn’t there. It’s a tender, hopeful portrait of progress that feels as real and incremental as Caden’s resurfacing.