nelamvr6 reviewed Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
A truly great book!
5 stars
What an amazing book! I feel like a fool for waiting so long to read it. It really touched me, I could barely put it down.
What an amazing book! I feel like a fool for waiting so long to read it. It really touched me, I could barely put it down.
An intellectually disabled man undergoes a procedure that makes him a genius, but the cost of intelligence and self-knowledge is high. Heart-rending & sensitively done.
Reading time 3 days, 79 pages/day
Somehow one of the most upsetting books I've read.
im torn on this book.
the best part was when they were at the summit and charlie lets algernon out of the cage. i really wish charlie just took algernon along with him and had an adventure with him a la ratatouille. i hate the women in this book, not because i hate women, but because they are strange boring and single-faceted. when fay appeared i had a real facepalm moment. like another reviewer said, charlie really does not have his damn priorities straight at all.
i really liked the scifi concept and i think it was executed well. i liked the way he rediscovered his past.
journal entry: i relate a lot to charlie. i had substance abuse problems as a teenager and it really destroyed my memory and degraded my brain tissue. i also experienced a lot of trauma that locked away a lot of my memories of …
im torn on this book.
the best part was when they were at the summit and charlie lets algernon out of the cage. i really wish charlie just took algernon along with him and had an adventure with him a la ratatouille. i hate the women in this book, not because i hate women, but because they are strange boring and single-faceted. when fay appeared i had a real facepalm moment. like another reviewer said, charlie really does not have his damn priorities straight at all.
i really liked the scifi concept and i think it was executed well. i liked the way he rediscovered his past.
journal entry: i relate a lot to charlie. i had substance abuse problems as a teenager and it really destroyed my memory and degraded my brain tissue. i also experienced a lot of trauma that locked away a lot of my memories of that time. now that im older i find those pieces of the past attack me once in a while in the same way. and now that im not intoxicated all the time, i experience them more vividly than i ever had before. charlie and i have like the same mom, its unnerving.
id like to be friends with algernon. id carry him around in my shirt pocket. i think he really needed a friend, and charlie just wasnt there for him. i cant believe he tried to give him a woman mouse. i bet charlie couldve taught algernon to read and write.
Possible spoilers I guess. I don't imagine anyone reads this book anymore without sort of knowing what they're getting in to. I read this book based on a huge number of reddit posts saying how sad it is. Call me strange, but I like to intentionally push my comfort zone occasionally. So, I read this. It's pretty well written. It's entertaining. It has moments of great speculation. It has moments of happiness and sadness. It. Is. Not. The. Saddest. Book. I've. Ever. Read. I'm sorry, but it's not even close. I never even teared up. I understand that I'm supposed to, but I just couldn't. It's worth the read to see what the fuss is about, but don't expect it to change your life.
This is one of the best books I read... it's a science fiction novel, told by the main character, Charlie, via a series of "progress reports", basically like a diary. He's a mentally retarded man who undergoes surgery to increase his intelligence. Algernon is a mouse who has undergone the same surgery. I loved the style and how it changes with Charlie's evolution, I couldn't stop reading until the end. The book describes how mentally retarded people where considered and treated at the time and follows Charlie's evolution after the operation, his perception of himself and others. It's an extremely interesting and moving read, and I'd recommend it to any sci-fi reader (but not only).
This was a pretty good book but it really hasn't aged well. If I would have read this book when I was a kid I'm sure I would have loved it. I vaguely remember a movie called "Charlie" that was based off of this book, I presume. I'm not sure that I ever watched it though. I was more into movies like Easy Rider and Go Ask Alice and other cool movies like that. Lol. Poor Charlie. Even when he became smart he was lonely and misunderstood. Well and he became kind of a jerk, too, the smarter he got, so there was that. He definitely was happier when he was retarded. It's like the question we used to ask when we were kids... Do retarded people know they are retarded? So anyway glad I finally read this but it wouldn't have been a great loss if I didn't. Too …
This was a pretty good book but it really hasn't aged well. If I would have read this book when I was a kid I'm sure I would have loved it. I vaguely remember a movie called "Charlie" that was based off of this book, I presume. I'm not sure that I ever watched it though. I was more into movies like Easy Rider and Go Ask Alice and other cool movies like that. Lol. Poor Charlie. Even when he became smart he was lonely and misunderstood. Well and he became kind of a jerk, too, the smarter he got, so there was that. He definitely was happier when he was retarded. It's like the question we used to ask when we were kids... Do retarded people know they are retarded? So anyway glad I finally read this but it wouldn't have been a great loss if I didn't. Too bad Charlie didn't have my IPad that corrects spelling and fixes your mistakes for you.