Depression. Most of us teenagers have been there. Problems that no one can understand, keeping secrets from our parents, a lot of stress and so on… I'm pretty sure you all know what I mean. The thing is, not everyone pays serious attention to these symptoms and when underestimated, depression can cause a lot of pain not only to a person diagnosed with it but also to the whole circle of people surrounding them.

The book starts off by describing the main character Craig. He's 17 and has just got accepted into Manhattan's Executive Pre-Professional High School, where he slowly finds out he's just an average. No one special. Just a typical boy brought up in New York like millions of others. The pressure from school while being introduced into the world of sex and drugs ends up being too much to handle and Craig finds himself having problems with concentrating on school work and with eating. Luckily, he realizes that something is not okay and seeks professional help. Doctor prescribes him medication and for once in a long time he feels good about himself. So good he eventually stops taking it because he truly believes his life is getting better and it has nothing to do with him taking the pills. And here he goes again. The feeling of unescapable despair starts rolling in and so do suicidal thoughts. This goes on for a few weeks until one night, when Craig decides to take his own life by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge. However right before he decides to take faith into his own hands, he remembers a book his mom once showed him. It's called “How to Survive the Loss of a Love”. He opens it and the first chapter says: If you feel like harming yourself right now, turn to page 20. Doing what the book says, he finds a number of the suicide hotline. When he calls, they tell him to go to the nearest hospital and check there.

Chapter 17 begins with Craig being in the emergency room at 5:30 am with a few other people. He gets a form to fill in and shortly after it's done the nurse takes him in. She asks him whether he has harmed himself and what medicine he was on and then types his something into the computer and right after that she gives him two bracelets with his name, Social Security number and bar code. Walking out of the emergency room, Craig sees some old women yelling for water, a group of Hispanic guys and, of course, some doctors and nurses until he enters a room marked 22 where nurse says him to wait for the doctor. Outside the room he notices a guy on a stretcher who is holding his hip while and tossing in pain and suddenly the familiar voice of a “fellow soldier” appears and says him he's proud of him for checking in and asking him if he thinks the guy on a stretcher is faking it. So, Craig looks once again at the guy, but what catches his eye instead is a big police officer carrying newspaper and a cup of coffee entering the room. The officer introduces himself and tells Craig that he is there if he needs anything. Meanwhile, the guy with the hip starts moaning and Craig wonders if the guy is heroin addict and only pretends to be in pain, so they would give him morphine. The officer shakes his paper and that brings Craig's eyes to look at it. It says: “86 Stories Down: Man plunges from Empire State”. Craig tries to make a conversation about it but what he gets instead is “You're not supposed to be looking at this.” At that moment Craig realizes that the officer is there to make sure he doesn't harm himself and while he is being sunk into his own thoughts, doctor enters the room. She asks him what's wrong and he says his story one more time. The next question is if he sees or hears things, which he denies. She says him that once the psychologist comes to work, Craig will meet with him and they will see what comes next after that, but first she informs him that he will have to know his parents where he is, just so they wouldn’t be scared but also because there will be some paperwork for them to sign. When the doctor leaves, he goes to the phones to call his parents what's going on, but he gets stopped by the officer who reminds him why he is really there, so Craig tells him he is just going to call his mom and when officer nods, Craig heads to the phones.

The thing with depression is that you can really make some bad decisions and I think it is very mature of Craig to check the book his mom showed him once and by that means he didn't hurt himself and got checked into the hospital where he will get the help he needs.