A review by philtor
Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy

4.0

Alicia is a 20 year old former mathematical prodigy with photographic memory. She's given up on doing mathematics because she's made some discoveries that cause here to doubt math's foundations - something akin to Godel's, apparently (He comes up a lot here) - and now she's even doubting the foundations of reality. She's checked herself into Stella Maris, a mental hospital in Wisconsin. This book is a series of conversations between Alicia and her psychiatrist. The psychiatrist realizes pretty quickly that he's probably out of his depth here - mentally outgunned, but he probably doesn't realize how much; Alicia estimates that she's read over 10,000 books and some of those were psychology books. They talk mathematics as the Dr. tries to figure out what it is that has brought Alicia here. Lots of mathematicians and philosophy are discussed.

I liked this book more than the first book in the series, Passengers, but you'll have to read the first book to have a good idea (and possibly another perspective) of what's happening here.