Scan barcode
A review by eesh25
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
4.0
I've been trying to figure out what to make of this book. Going in, the only expectation I had, given the format, was the I'd get to see the changes in Charlie's intelligence from the way he wrote the letters, and I got that.
The book is about a few different things. Mainly it's about Charlie, a man with a mental development disability, who volunteers for an experiment that will increase his intelligence. And throughout the book, we deal with the various repercussion the success of this experiment has. And those repercussions have to do with the experiment itself, how well it works, and with how the experiment changes Charlie and the people around him. The sci-fi elements are minimal though since the novel mainly deals with Charlie's self-discovery and some thoughts about people and their behaviour.
My favourite part of the book was, without a doubt, the effect Charlie's increase in intelligence had on his emotional state. Charlie gets smart very fast, and it opens to him so many things about his past that he'd never understood before. But emotionally, he's still a child and struggles to deal with the discoveries. His thoughts and actions reflect that.
Honestly, the entire book is written very well. Even the couple of writing choices I didn't like fit Charlie's personality. Like a few months after the experiment, Charlie would use several paragraphs to describe something in a convoluted way even though the same could've been said in half as many words, and simpler ones at that. But again, that was the person Charlie was at the time. And the only issue I had with that was how much smarter Charlie got. I would've preference normal smart instead of him becoming possibly the smartest human to ever exist.
I'm also not entirely sure how I felt about Charlie's backstory. I guess that's just not something I wanted with this book. It was so personal and heartbreaking. And though I didn't dislike it, I was a bit indifferent toward the existence of the subplot.
One last complaint, and this the only real one. I didn't like how the female characters were written. One was a manic pixie dream girl, plain and simple. The other was a flawed person I could've gotten behind. But the relationship she had with Charlie never made sense to me. It was honestly a tad creepy. And she was too emotionally fragile for me to see her as a positive presence in Charlie's life the way the book wanted me to.
The aspects of the story relating to human nature were done well. Some of them were from the flashbacks of Charlie's family, but a lot of them had to do with how his coworkers and doctors treated him before and after he started getting smart. And some even related to Charlie's own behaviour.
Finally, the ending was good. It wasn't a surprise since the GR synopsis itself gives it away, and the book doesn't make a secret of it either. I liked both what it was and how it was written. So overall, I had a few issues, but I liked the book, and I recommend checking it out.
The book is about a few different things. Mainly it's about Charlie, a man with a mental development disability, who volunteers for an experiment that will increase his intelligence. And throughout the book, we deal with the various repercussion the success of this experiment has. And those repercussions have to do with the experiment itself, how well it works, and with how the experiment changes Charlie and the people around him. The sci-fi elements are minimal though since the novel mainly deals with Charlie's self-discovery and some thoughts about people and their behaviour.
My favourite part of the book was, without a doubt, the effect Charlie's increase in intelligence had on his emotional state. Charlie gets smart very fast, and it opens to him so many things about his past that he'd never understood before. But emotionally, he's still a child and struggles to deal with the discoveries. His thoughts and actions reflect that.
Honestly, the entire book is written very well. Even the couple of writing choices I didn't like fit Charlie's personality. Like a few months after the experiment, Charlie would use several paragraphs to describe something in a convoluted way even though the same could've been said in half as many words, and simpler ones at that. But again, that was the person Charlie was at the time. And the only issue I had with that was how much smarter Charlie got. I would've preference normal smart instead of him becoming possibly the smartest human to ever exist.
I'm also not entirely sure how I felt about Charlie's backstory. I guess that's just not something I wanted with this book. It was so personal and heartbreaking. And though I didn't dislike it, I was a bit indifferent toward the existence of the subplot.
One last complaint, and this the only real one. I didn't like how the female characters were written. One was a manic pixie dream girl, plain and simple. The other was a flawed person I could've gotten behind. But the relationship she had with Charlie never made sense to me. It was honestly a tad creepy. And she was too emotionally fragile for me to see her as a positive presence in Charlie's life the way the book wanted me to.
The aspects of the story relating to human nature were done well. Some of them were from the flashbacks of Charlie's family, but a lot of them had to do with how his coworkers and doctors treated him before and after he started getting smart. And some even related to Charlie's own behaviour.
Finally, the ending was good. It wasn't a surprise since the GR synopsis itself gives it away, and the book doesn't make a secret of it either. I liked both what it was and how it was written. So overall, I had a few issues, but I liked the book, and I recommend checking it out.