Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

My very first article of this year was about my favorite book, Heir Apparent. I find it very fitting that my last article of this year will be about my new favorite book, Challenger Deep, by Neal Shusterman. It’s told from the perspective of Caden Bosch, a fifteen-year-old artist with schizophrenia. I would usually say “it follows the story of,” but the writing style is more like a rabbit’s warren than a linear path; it changes narrative style based on how Caden is perceiving the world. Some chapters will be in second person, some will be in first. Sometimes the world being viewed through the narrator’s lens will be perfectly logical, and other times Caden will be on an otherworldly ship full of unusual characters, headed for Challenger Deep, the deepest known point on the Earth’s surface.

I first started this book more than a year ago, when we did book recommendations in a club I was in. I instantly loved it. Unfortunately, I didn’t finish it fast enough, and the library needed it back. (These were the days when the Champaign Public Library still had late fees on books.) After returning the unfinished book, I sort of forgot about it for a while. Until, that is, I recently received my own copy. I read the 300-page book in about four days, which is an extraordinarily fast pace for me. It was impossible to put down. Here are just a few of the reasons I find it so engaging and remarkable.


1. The illustrations

Because he’s an artist, Caden’s illustrations are included throughout the book. However, he doesn’t draw things exactly as he sees them, or even things that are real. Most of his drawings are based on his journey on the ship, such as this illustration of a whale and a giant squid fighting:



This is one of the more representational drawings, as they get quite abstract at times, such as this one:



However, they always relate to the writing. (This particular one comes after a passage where Caden has a conversation with the ship’s figurehead, and I believe it represents the ocean and the stars that he sees during this interaction.) I find this particularly astonishing because the author’s son drew all of the illustrations during his own episodes with schizophrenia, and it’s amazing how the author was able to incorporate them.


2. The parallels

Even though Caden’s ship seems to be completely separate from reality at first, as you read you discover more and more parallels between the real world and that of the ship. For example, Caden’s friend Hal, who enjoys making maps, appears on the ship as the navigator. My favorite part of reading this was finding those connections and corresponding pieces, like solving a puzzle, but with no real end goal.


3. The enigmatic nature

This is one of the first books that I have written annotations in, because it left me with so much to think about. Aside from discovering the parallels, sometimes you really have to think about what the book is saying in order to understand it. Sometimes, Caden has episodes where he believes that he is the only thing holding the universe together, and that he is the universe, or he is nothing at all. These passages quite simply blew my mind, and I was thinking about the writing for days afterwards.

Overall, I would give this book a 5/5. It’s powerful, surprisingly emotional, and it’s honestly quite a workout for your brain to try and comprehend it. I recommend this book to everyone!


- Anna