Reviews

I feel that I am one of the few people who had not already read this book. If you still haven’t, you should. If only to be culturally literate.
You also should read it if at all possible.
It’s one of those books that you need to look at. It utilizes a form of visual storytelling that, in my opinion, isn’t translatable to film or audio.
If you haven’t read through the book, it’s told through journal entries tracking a man’s progress from mentally handicapped to genius and not only do you understand this journey intellectually but you see it through a growing grasp of spelling and grammar.
I love when books utilize visual storytelling, not in the least because it’s extremely hard to do and maintain. It’s a brilliant story but I think I loved the use of the medium more than I loved the actual story.
Still going on my favorites list though

rocar's review against another edition

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sad

4.25

sortedhaywire's review against another edition

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5.0

It's very difficult to see the world through eyes of those who are not readily accepted just as they are. We wish people to fit in the norm, to become law-abiding, moral citizens. And then we chastise, those who don't fit in the box.
This conversation is between charlie now and charlie then, but isn't this also the conversation we have with others. We assume what is right and what should be the best course. But do we, who makes the rules?

"You want these back, don't you? You want me out of here so you can come back and take over where you left off. I don't blame you. It's your body and your brain—and your life, even though you weren't able to make much use of it. I don't have the right to take it away from you. Nobody does. Who's to say that my light is better than your darkness? Who's to say death is better than your darkness? Who am I to say?...
"But I'll tell you something else, Charlie." I stood up and backed away from the mirror. "I'm not your friend. I'm your enemy. I'm not going to give up my intelligence without a struggle. I can't go back down into that cave. There's no place for me to go now, Charlie. So you've got to stay away. Stay inside my unconscious where you belong, and stop following me around. I'm not going to give up—no matter what they all think. No matter how lonely it is. I'm going to keep what they've given me and do great things for the world and for other people like you."

We don't know all the answers. But we can at least try to understand what genuinely matters.

"Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I've discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you as a hypothesis: Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in itself as a self-centered end, to the exclusion of human relationships, can onlyd to violence and pain."

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