For the better half of this year, I've been stuck on the gargantuan project of finishing the Stormlight Archives, going aat it with the renewed energy of a desperate fighter, I've swallowed and enjoyed almost 5,000 pages worth of Stormlight induced fantasy awesomeness.
I just finished the novella Dawnchant and what remains is the last book available out before I could be part of others on the wait-list for his next story.
Coincidentally, the one who mentioned and sent this story to me is the same person who introduced me to the Stormlight Archives, my namesake, one of my best friends and my personal grumpy gnome 😂
We were talking about books amongst other things we talk about when we aren't at each other's throats, then she mentioned this tale as one of the most emotional stories she had ever read.
At first I put it off because the name sounded like one of those Romeo and Juliet type of books and lord knows that this year isn't my best for snobby tearful romance.
Regardless like I said, after Dawnchant, I decided to give it a glance. Needless to say that the glance turned to a scan, the scan began a read and the read took me on a full on journey.
Flower's For Algernon
Charlie Gordon has always been short of many things, words and intelligence the most, but what he has is courage and determination.
This 37 year old lad with an IQ of 67 is on a mission to be smart, and he has been willingly drafted for a surgery that could make his dream of intelligence be a reality.
Although, after he gets smart, he is quick to catch on that losing ignorance gains him a whole bigger level of anger and pain.
This novel is one that should be preserved in the history books.
A thirty two page story of a 37 year old man that would probably teach a lifetime worth of lessons.
I don't even know how to start this review to be honest, just know that the story is wonderful and the author, Daniel Keyes, is a legend.
I guess when I'm without a clue of how to start, it's best to follow a template...
What I Loved
Everything.
That would have been the end but I doubt I've reached minimum word count so I'll ramble a bit😂
- Embodying The Character
This is something that I believed made the book so heart wrenching to read.
The embodiment of the character in the lines!!
We're introduced to Charlie, a 37 year old willingly applied lab rat who's trying to be smart.
The wrong spelling, lack of punctuation, eye turning yet perfectly read able speech made the "low brain IQ" even more believable.
It's something that not everyone considers, and it's not something all author's can do.
Allowing your character to overflow from the pages, forcing the reader to be able to understand his struggles and acknowledge his effort.
When he became smart...
We see the distinct change in how he talks and his writing.
In fact, not only us the readers, but the characters around him, and indeed it became uncomfortable.
Charlie didn't mind at first though, he was smart, he was happy.
The intellectual prowess brought to his attention numerous things he hadn't considered before, one especially being love...
The realization of just how far his intelligence had grown and was growing brought on new emotions and spurred new instances...
This makes us wonder just how much is intelligence really worth, is it worth the loneliness, worth the lack of love?
I could go on and on about the novel but with so few pages I can't afford to spoil anymore.
I really recommend you all to read it, this is a book you can finish under thirty minutes but ponder on for the rest of the day/week.
The ending is even more tragic but I won't speak more, I'll leave that for you book loving folks who are dying of thirst for the knowledge Charlie acquired...
Header image was created using Canva, other images are screenshots from my e-library.
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