Trigger Warning: Child Abuse
I just finished this book and it is so unbelievably touching. As someone who has experienced the process of being targeted and abused due to mental health conditions, and not having the awareness until later in life to look back and start understanding the abuse for what it was, this book spoke to my heart in ways no story ever has.
It’s an incredibly emotional and difficult journey to suddenly have the awareness to understand that your own family and friends have actually been your abusers. And then to try and make peace with it and forgive those people as you outgrow them is even more difficult.
When Charlie and his sister are catching up while his mom is mindlessly unaware of herself due to dementia, it reminded me of how odd a feeling it is to see your own parents as they really are and how their mental illnesses affects them. And as terribly as she’d treated him, to see Charlie still care to make her happy is heartbreaking. Deep down, even us children who can recognize that our parents are mentally unwell and abusive, still have some part of us that want for them to love us and approve of us, even if just for a moment.
Then on the other hand, the loneliness that Charlie feels when he’s highly intelligent is also relatable and well written. Speaking as someone who has been classified as “Exceptionally Gifted” I often don’t relate to media portrayals of “geniuses.” And I appreciate the portrayal of someone who has a high intellect and the social disconnect that comes with it as well as the combination of being emotionally stunted. The realization that there’s a, albeit different, but similar feeling of isolation when you have an abnormally low IQ as when you have an abnormally high IQ. Either way, it’s difficult to communicate with those around you and you feel outcast and lonely.
All around, I think this book is phenomenally well done and I can’t wait to see if the movie captures the story well. (Or as well as a movie can anyways lol)
by DoughnutThink2888