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Cover of Darius the Great is not okay by Adib Khorram

Darius the Great is not okay

  • 320 pages · about 5 hours
  • First published 2018
  • 6 editions

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1 About this book

Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He's a Fractional Persian--half, his mom's side--and his fist ever trip to Iran is about to change his life.

Darius has never really fit in at home, and he's sure things are going to be the same in Iran. His clinical depression doesn't exactly help matters and trying to explain his medication to his grandparents only makes things harder. Then Darius meets Sohrab, the boy next door, and everything changes. Soon, they're spending their days together, playing soccer, eating faludeh, and talking for hours on a secret rooftop overlooking the city's skyline. Sohrab calls him Darioush--the original Farsi version of his name--and Darius has never felt more like himself than he does now that he's Darioush to Sohrab.

  • Friendship
  • Asian Americans
  • Middle east
  • Mental Depression
  • Grandparents
  • Children's fiction
  • Young adult fiction
  • People & Places

2 About Adib Khorram

Born 1984

Adib Khorram is an Iranian-American author who mainly writes young adult fiction. He is most well-known for his 2018 book Darius the Great is Not Okay, which won the 2019 YALSA William C. Morris Award and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. The sequel, Darius the Great Deserves Better, earned a 2021 Stonewall Honor.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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