You need this on your shelves because:
- Darius returns as the huge tea nerd we all love to see in literature
- There are fantastic mental health, racism, and queer discussions
- Darius’ family deserves their own documentary
- This book feels like a soothing hug
Review:
There’s a gentleness to Khorram’s writing that is hard to put into words. Perhaps it is the effervescence Khorram employs when describing Darius’ love for tea or the abundant love Darius has for his family. No matter what it is, the writing style feels as soothing as a hot cup of perfectly prepared tea on an autumn night, calming and reinvigorating in equal measures.
This, quite like the first novel, is a character-driven story. We get everything the first book gave us, but somehow it just feels like more. More fleshed-out, more emotionally sound, more captivating.
Darius has so much on his plate and is incredibly overwhelmed but doesn’t know how to articulate it. Since his trip to Iran to visit his dying grandfather, he has come out as gay, found a cute boyfriend, joined the soccer team and made new friends, and even scored an internship at the coveted tea shop that he’s always dreamed of working at. Really, everything that could go right, did. And yet, Darius isn’t happy. His family is struggling with money issues after all the expenses of their trip to Iran, his sister is being bullied at school and called ‘terrorist’, his boyfriend Landon is pressuring him to have sex even though Darius knows he isn’t ready yet, the work at the tea shop is making him anxious and harried, not to mention that his newfound friend and teammate Chip, who used to be a silent bystander when Darius got bullied, is still friends with homophobic jerk Trent while also making Darius’ head and emotions spin like a rollercoaster. On top of that, his grandfather is still dying and his best friend lives half a world away and suddenly isn’t around to chat to anymore, either. Pair that with Darius’ depression and self-doubts about his body and his soccer skills, everything is just too much.
It’s a lot to deal with on a good day, it’s insurmountable on a bad one. Khorram takes his time letting Darius explore his feelings and manages to make all these topics flow together seamlessly. I was feeling and rooting for Darius throughout the novel, hoping he would find a way to be happy without having to compromise the things he loves, or his own beliefs.
There were so many things I loved, but let me just tell you the four that stuck out the most to me. First, the mental health discussion. Darius lives with depression just like his father does; it’s something they are very open about. Darius’ boyfriend Landon asks once whether Darius’ father is still depressed and that made me roll my eyes because it was so relatable. It’s tiny comments like these that hurt people dealing with mental illnesses because others are still waiting for them to get better and don’t understand that you can be both happy and depressed at the same time. Depression doesn’t leave the premises when happiness comes around, it still remains at the edges waiting to creep back in and I loved how Darius described it.
Second, the topic of homophobia was handled incredibly well. For the longest time, Chip doesn’t understand why Darius feels uncomfortable that Chip is still friends with Trent, a boy who has bullied Darius in the past both in racist and homophobic terms and still does to this day. Chip tries to defend himself and Trent, saying that being friends with Trent doesn’t change the way he feels about Darius, yet he remains silent when Trent says hurtful things to Darius. Instead, Darius’ other friends on the soccer team stand up for him and while that was heartwarming (Darius deserves the world), it was also important to watch Chip realise that just because you’re friends with someone who knows you’re queer doesn’t automatically make them an ally.
Third, the way the book handled discussions of racism. Darius’s sister Laleh is getting her first taste of racism in this sequel and it broke my heart. Darius, who loves and supports his sister unconditionally, tries to help the best he can because he has been there, and is still there. Yet the teacher looks the other way when Darius tells her that Laleh’s school mates have called her ‘terrorist’ and ‘Lolly’. It was frustrating to read and it must be more frustrating to experience, especially when you try your hardest to make people face what’s happening to young kids and nothing is done about it.
Fourth, Darius’ and his body issues and being pressured into sex. It’s so rare to see guys in YA who are insecure about their bodies and I loved how Darius was getting more confident, but still fearing his boyfriend seeing him naked. I just wanted to hug him and tell him that it’s okay, that we’ve all been there. Darius’ self-consciousness about his body is also what makes him uncertain whether he wants to go further with his boyfriend and I was so proud of him for telling Landon no but really angry at how Landon made it about himself and was trying to pressure Darius because he had been so patient with him. I think we see a lot of this sort of pressure in novels surrounding girls (and rightly so) but I felt like it was important to show that it’s not just girls that get pressured into doing things they don’t want to. And that it’s okay to wait if that’s what you want, no matter what your partner tells you. Going at your own pace is never wrong.
I’m sneaking in a fifth because one of the things that stuck out to me in this novel was how Darius, when not knowing someone, would automatically default to talking about the individuals with they/them pronouns and not commenting on their gender identity or as what they were presenting. It felt so natural and made my heart soar every time it happened.
As passionate and sensitive as its predecessor, Darius the Great Deserves Better invites people back into Darius’ whirlwind of a life and offers up the knowledge that it’s okay to want more from life, even if you don’t know what that more will look like yet.
Darius the Great Deserves Better is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of August 25th 2020.
Will you be picking up Darius the Great Deserves Better? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
In this companion to the award-winning Darius the Great Is Not Okay, Darius suddenly has it all: a boyfriend, an internship, a spot on the soccer team. It’s everything he’s ever wanted–but what if he deserves better?
Darius Kellner is having a bit of a year. Since his trip to Iran this past spring, a lot has changed. He’s getting along with his dad, and his best friend Sohrab is only a Skype call away. Between his first boyfriend, Landon, his varsity soccer practices, and his internship at his favorite tea shop, Darius is feeling pretty okay. Like he finally knows what it means to be Darius Kellner.
Then, of course, everything changes. Darius’s grandmothers are in town for a long visit while his dad is gone on business, and Darius isn’t sure whether they even like him. The internship isn’t what Darius thought it would be, and now he doesn’t know about turning tea into his career. He was sure he liked Landon, but when he starts hanging out with Chip–soccer teammate and best friend of Trent Bolger, epic bully–well, he’s just not so sure about Landon anymore, either.
Darius thought he knew exactly who he was and what he wanted, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe he deserves better.
