just finished flowers for algernon

well damn

I don’t even know how to describe what im feeling, I just feel so hollow and numb after that ending.

Every single plot point of that book was so absolutely heartbreaking, and it’s just so—RARGH for me — how everything Charlie had to suffer through is because of intelligence !

Throughout his lack of it, pursuit of it, and decline of it people were so cruel to him. He had no friends when he was dumb because people thought him a play thing to mock, he barely had any friends when he was getting smarter because the same people who mocked him then found him too intimidating, and he isolated himself from everyone when he was regressing. God! The only person who was ever truly there for him was Alice and it. breaks. my. heart.

The first grammatical error Charlie made during his regression got to me so bad I had to put the book down and stare at the wall for a bit.

Oh, and idk if it’s just me making things up but when he went to meet his mom, and she was well into her senility – it also broke me because there’s such a cruel parallelism to it, how she (rose) was falling back into the past, struggling to remember things, living in misery, hoping her husband will come back – and then we see a bunch of entries later Charlie experiencing the same thing : soiling himself, struggling to remember everything he learned, just ! Falling back into who he used to be ! And being so aware of it but not being able to do anything about it!

And his relationship with that damned mouse got me too! Another cruel symbolism because of how the only other living being Charlie gets to relate to is a lab rat, an experiment. Algernon meeting Minnie and hurting her, just like how Charlie ended up scaring fay away. Ugh! sobs

Absolutely devastating. 10/10.