Really great YA book about mental health, bullying, living between cultures & connecting with family culture (Iran), and familial relationships that are tense. I liked how it focuses on a teen's struggles with depression and that is difficult for others to understand that a teenager could be suicidal and very depressed without a major events such as war or death- and that even more common mental illnesses are not well understood. Some tension between Darius and his father about a taboo of bringing up depression, based on his father's guilt with passing on mental illness to a child. It explores barriers in communication through language, culture, age, and distance, as well as terminal illness, between Darius and his mother and his grandfather. All of the characters are realistic in their longing to connect as a family (or as friends) but struggle with the barriers of different life experiences or distance. (Also love Darius's love of Star Trek and its use as a bonding tool)