Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

This year reading started off well with "Flowers for Algernon". I have been wanting to read this book for a while especially after reading the synopsis a couple of years back. I grabbed it out of the library shelf after spotting it and 36 hours later, i am surprised how much I have come to love this book.

The story essentially is a record of all the thoughts pacing through Charlie Gordon, a 32 year old mentally disabled janitor. It tells the life of Charlie Gordon before and after he had undergone an operation that not able to reverse his disability but exceed his mental capabilities to those comparable to Einstein and Hawkings.

It is the psychological rollercoaster that Charlie experienced that makes this book amazing. On preceiving how the world was for him when even though he was intellectually superior to most of the people in the world, emotionally, he was no different for a child. And finally when he began to flourish emotionally, it might just be a tat too late.

Without giving away too much, the book is thought provoking. It altered my perception on mental disability, about EQ and IQ, and even question the concept of intelligence.

It is an excellent way to start the year with this book.