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.