Review: Darius the Great Deserves Better

Darius the Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved this book. I appreciated that reading #1 wasn't a requirement to really enjoy this one. Darius is a queer half Iranian, half white teen in Portland, ORE --the book follows Darius as he navigates a new relationship, gender and racial discrimination, and treatment of his depression, among other things. Throw in a new job, parents struggling to make ends meet (his father also struggles with clinical depression), a little sister experiencing racial discrimination as a third grader, a grandfather who is not only in hospice, but far away in Iran, and a best friend (also in Iran) who, while super supportive of Darius, has his own problems. Darius is immensely loveable and an incredibly sensitive and tender-hearted person. My mother heart reached out to him as he faced all of the challenges that came his way, and I was so happy that he had an awesome network of support: supportive friends, parents and grandparents. I know that so many kids like Darius don't have all this...so does the author, Adib Khorram, who reaches out his hand to his readers in his author's note. I look forward to reading the first book to see how Darius meets his Iranian relatives and his best friend Sohrab.

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