Review: Flowers for Algernon

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3 out of 5 stars - It was ok

This book is definitely thought provoking. The writing was very good, and you could barely tell it was written in the 60s and not today (other than the lack of cell phones and social media!)

It did make me think about how people are treated differently by those who are intellectually superior or inferior.

Charlie was born with a low IQ and an inability to truly learn. Growing up, his mother was determined to make him "normal" and when she couldn't do that, she sent him away to an institution. He lived for many years as an independent adult with a lot of help from a friend of his uncle. He worked in a bakery and had a place to live. While he was working, he was also going to an adult learning institution to try to prove himself to his mother. He wanted to be "smart", which in his mind meant reading and writing.

While a student at the adult learning institution, he was recommended for a study at a local university. The study wanted to prove that a surgery would increase a person's ability to learn and thus their intelligence and IQ. Charlie goes through with the surgery (with approval from his sister aka guardian).

We then follow the case through the progression of Charlie's learning and potential complications. Charlie befriends Algernon, one of the mice in the study. He watches Algernon and can figure out what will potentially happen to him next.

The entire book is written as a set of journal entries from Charlie. The writing style follows his intelligence level, so sometimes you have to decipher words that are spelled incorrectly or used wrong.

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