Review: Darius the Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram

Set a year after “Darius the Great Is Not Okay,” “Darius the Great Deserves Better,” by Adibe Khorram, finds Darius Kellner on his school’s soccer team with new friends, an internship at his dream tea shop, and a beautiful boyfriend.

But all is not well: Darius’s parents are struggling to make ends meet following their trip to Iran, his sister is the target of racist bullies at school, his father is going through a depressive episode, and his boyfriend is pressuring him to have sex.

Also, he’s become best friends with Chip Cusumano and is attracted to him.

I loved the first book and wanted to love this one, but it just wasn’t as good. The plot was a hot mess and I felt Khorram tried to cover too much at once, resulting in book that lacked focus.

The magic in book one was missing in this one as Darius all but forget about Sohrab, only contacting him when he needed someone to vent to.

As for Darius’s grandmothers, Oma and Grandma, they were so underdeveloped it was hard to distinguish one from the other, which was also the case for most of Darius’s friends from the soccer team.

Moreover, the relationships between Darius and Landon and Darius and Chip lacked any chemistry, and by the end I didn’t care who he ended up with.

And speaking of endings, this one sucked. Things were building up to a climax and then the story ended without resolving most of the plot lines.

So many of the conflicts in this book could have been easily solved had Darius and the other characters just talked to each other.

I also thought the bi rep was awful as Landon, who’s bi, was depicted as only caring about sex.

However, I did like the mental health rep in this book. I also connected with Darius’s struggles with his weight and body image issues and liked that Khorram didn’t magically make him a ripped Adonis.

Overall, I didn’t like this book and only recommend you rent it from the library.

I give “Darius the Great Deserves Better” 2.8 out of 5 stars.