Darius Kellner calls himself a "Fractional Persian"—his mother is Persian, and he refers to his blonde, Teutonic father as the Übermensch. But he feels like he doesn't quite fit into either world. He looks like his mother but never really learned to speak Farsi (although his younger sister did), and while he and his father share a love of Star Trek , it seems like mostly Darius disappoints his father, because he's not more athletic, not in better shape, not the Übermensch-in-training he knows his father wants. I used to believe that the first chapters of a story set the tone for the whole book, but DARIUS THE GREAT IS NOT OKAY proved me wrong. See, I had trouble picturing the events happening in the first twenty or so pages. I couldn’t picture the characters, settings or figure out the relationships between people. But the more I read, the better it got and this is not something I get to say very often.