People often started their reviews by saying this book so-and-so made them cry. That doesn’t mean anything to me. I don’t cry for a book.

Little did I know that I would begin my review now by saying this book made me cry! And not just a tear or two, but more like weeping for 5 minutes. At least TWO times! The last time I cried because of a book was probably The Time Traveler’s Wife, which I read in 2004.

Charlie was born retarded. He lives his entire life with not much more than broken memories and haziness. But Charlie wants to be smart. He knows he’s lacking something and that he wants that something so he can be like everybody else. One day an opportunity arrives. A research facility needs a human guinea pig. If the experiment is successful, Charlie would become.. normal, though of course, there’s a chance that it might fail. Charlie doesn’t care. He’s going to do anything to be smarter.

I have a little confession to make. For me, it’s very important to be smart. As a kid I was obsessed with IQ tests. I started doing them since I was three. I knew I wasn’t a genius, but my IQ was high enough to be, say, the highest in class, and in general, to get away with a lot of things. Some people might be the funny one, the pretty one, the talkative one, the kind one. But me, I need to be the smart one. Most of the time this thought lays deep at my subconscious mind, but at certain times when I feel my brain fails me big time, I could get pretty depressed, and the worms are out in the open. What if I’m just not that smart? What would I be? WHAT IF? –I would heap on my despair, sink in my misery.

I could relate with Charlie in many ways. I always feel the need to be smart. I understand how the little child in us always needs to get our parents’ approval. Look at me Ma! I am smart! I am somebody!

Boy, did I cry!

The book is told in a series of Charlie’s personal journal, so we could see how he progresses and gets smarter, then later finds out how things were never what he thought they were when he lived in his blurry state.

You know how sometimes even a good book slows its pace at some parts? It never happened with this book. The pace was good from beginning til end. Every page was a joy to read. Not only that, it’s packed with emotional punch. One thing for sure, I would never see a “slow” person the same way ever again.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough. To anybody! I love you Daniel Keyes! Thank you for your contribution to this world! (sorry, that just gushed out of me) I can’t believe my first two books of the year were so 5 stars! I have a good feeling for this year.

1966, 216 pp

First line
Dr Strauss says I shoud rite down what I think and remembir and evrey thing that happins to me from now on.

Awards
1966 Nebula Award for Best Novel

Quotes

“.. Miss Kinnian says dont worry spelling is not suppose to make sence.” ~ p24

“Now I understand one of the important reasons for going to college and getting an education is to learn that the things you’ve believed in all your life aren’t true, and that nothing is what it appears to be.” ~ p50

Challenges
Book Awards IV (book #2), Read the Book See the Movie (book #1)

Also reviewed by
Loved it! — Farm Lane Books Blog | Savidge Reads | Novel Insight | Reading Matters
Not quite. — Books for Breakfast

Charly (1968)

I had reservation about watching the movie, because the book was just SO good. There’s no way the movie can even compare. But I saw Cliff Robertson won Oscar for Best Actor in 1969 for the film, so I gave it a chance.

Well, I was right. It’s not horrible, but it’s nothing compared to the book. In the movie we lose a lot of Charlie’s inner thoughts, which are the main point of the book. A lot of his external and internal conflicts were cut as well, leaving mainly his love interest.

I would give the movie a pass.

Rating: 6/10

Apart from my reading challenges, I read the book (and watch the movie) to participate on Carl’s Sci Fi Experience 2010 (run in the month of January and February). Are you participating? You still have time if you want to! :)

After Flowers for Algernon I definitely have a lot more confidence in trying the Sci-Fi genre. A few years ago I told the person who gave me the book that “I don’t read science fiction.” But when we discussed some books that we’ve read, I mentioned The Time Traveller’s Wife and Kindred. He quickly pointed out that I do read sci-fi. Sci-fi does not mean all outer-space and machines. I agree that we really shouldn’t pigeon-hole books into a certain genre, and avoid them as a result. Imagine what great books that we could be missing out! I do plan to read more of what is called sci-fi books in the future. Nebula and Hugo award winners would be a great start. At the moment I’m thinking Stranger in a Strange Land.

Can you think of any books that you are passionate about that fall into the sci-fi genre?

It’s like talking to a person out of this world — wacky, interesting and unpredictable. The book takes you to journey you’d never guess (and probably shouldn’t try to). It’s fun. I’m sure you’d laugh a lot along the way. I did.

“They’ve got as much sex appeal as a road accident.” ~ Ford, p60

Note: I just knew that the term Babel Fish came from this book. Cool. (Babel Fish is a small yellow fish that you put in your ears to translate. Of course there’s a “scientific” explanation for it in the book. Today, Babel Fish is a translation engine.)

Note 2: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a trilogy that consists of 5 books. Eoin Colfer (of Artemis Fowl) is writing the 6th book (titled And Another Thing…) which will be out in October 2009.

1979, 224 pp

First line
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

Last line
‘We’ll take in a quick bite at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.’

Also reviewed by

She Treads Softly | Bibiolatry | Book Nut (a conversation)

This book is the second of Ishiguro that I read (first was When We Were Orphans). The style is a bit different. Easier to digest I’d say, a page turner. The author is good at giving hints to something in the past or the future, and makes me wanting more throughout the entire book.

I can’t say more without spilling spoilers. So I’m just gonna blurt it out.

*SPOILER WARNING*

I think by now almost everyone that has heard about this book knows that it is about clones (As far as I recall though, the word “clone” is only mentioned twice in the entire book). I thought most of the aspects were covered pretty well, but I can’t help wondering why the idea of parents were not discussed at all. It should be a pretty sad moment to know that everybody else out there has parents and you don’t. But I guess they’ve always known that they’re “purposefully created”, and when everybody around you has the same fate as you, you would just accept things as they are. Like a frog never really wishes to fly.

I found relationship between Ruth and Tommy is a bit hard to believe. I mean they’re really two different persons, and I can’t imagine them being together in the first place. Though if you think more about it, they’re both a bit annoying. Ruth is awfully pretentious and attention seeker. Tommy childish, weak, indecisive (he waited until Ruth allowed Kath and him to be together to do something about it? Anyway he never did much about anything.)

I’m also wondering what’s the significance of alphabets for their last name. I thought A would be the first clone for that person, B second, and so on. But they never mentioned anything about it and my theory doesn’t make much sense too, because if it’s true then if Kath’s last name is H, that means she’s the 8th clone, which means the real person where they take the gene from has probably been dead a long time ago if they wait for each clone to ‘complete’ to make the same clone. But Kath tried to find her ‘possible’ and she thought she was alive. If they make a few of the same clones at the same time, wouldn’t she wonder where the other clones are, and not just her ‘possible’? So anyway, their ‘last name’ confused me.

Many things are just eerie. The way they say ‘complete’ to mark their discontinuation to live. The way Madame and Miss Emily so matter-of-factly and cold-heartedly explain everything to them and dismiss them just like that. Not to mention the whole donor thingy.

After I finished the book, when I looked back, I thought the characters are almost void of emotions in just a very eerie way. There’s no big emotion to whatever new things that they discovered no matter how shocking it was. And rightly so. After all, they’re clones, which were doubted that they even had souls.

Rating: 4 out of 5 [Very good]
Flowing reading, satisfying climax, a unique topic that is brought very nicely. Few loose ends.

First line

My name is Kathy H.

Last line

I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be.

Also reviewed by

robaroundbooks | Stuff as Dreams are Made on

The Road is awarded Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007, James Tait Black Prize in 2006, and a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.

I was sorely disappointed with this book. I read it by the recommendation of a colleague, and many other people who quoted that this was their best book of the year. What I found was a book that left me all cold, and to be honest, bored. There are a lot of repetitions, from storyline (walk, cold, find food, sleep in cold, walk some more, repeat) to use of words (dark, gray, ash, black, silence, cold, repeat). The author also omitted a lot of punctuations for god knows why.

The setting is post-apocalyptic world. Survived a father and his son (and some other people they met along the way). Why it happened and why they survived are never explained. The author instead described this apocalyptic world endlessly and repeatedly, using repeated words over and over. I got all excited every time someone talked, but the spikes went away all too quickly, because there was nothing much ever happened.

The book is short, but I couldn’t finish it quickly because at several points it could be too depressing, and depressingly boring. At several points it literally bored me to tears. The book can’t even be considered as philosophical (something people might expect from topics like post-apocalyptic world). There’s little discussion about anything. It’s just full of plain hard facts, very descriptive novel. The only thing that I assume made it standout among all others is the fact that the author picked a unique subject matter. It could’ve been a very good book had it been developed more or differently. This one though, left me all flat, didn’t stir me one bit.

Ratings: 3 out of 5
Interesting subject matter. It has a lot of potential to be a very good book, but falls short for me.

terrible » poor » mediocre » okay » good » very good » excellent » superb

First line
When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him.

Last line
In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.

Quotes
“You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.” ~ p12

Discussion at bookcrossing forum

I struggled to go through the first chapter or so, because it’s a bit confusing at first. The book is written as if it’s a big clipping of many events, with exact dates, whose point of view (Henry/Clare), and how old they are at that time. The book follows Clare’s timeline (thus the title).

I put this book down for about 2 months, because I caught up in other reading. After I started again, and up about a quarter, I couldn’t stop reading. It’s captivating, enthrilling, and totally unpredictable. I couldn’t guess what’s going to happen next.

In a few sentences, you may think the spirit of the story is somewhat closer to science fiction, but it’s really not. The time traveling is “just” the vessel. The topics covered are much wider, at times I felt things were a bit rushed. The author has so much to tell and yet so few pages.

At some parts, you want to be them. To be engaged in such romantic and unique accidents of nature. At other parts, you may cry. Because when reality eats you coldly, unavoidably, it’s so excruciating that you wish things were not true. It’s story about love and loss, hopes and hopelessness, miracle and reality, longing, uncontrollable divine forces, also real life problems of marriage, abandonment, parenthood, secrets, and cruelty of the world.

One of the finest book I have ever read. Very carefully constructed page by page. And I can say you may never find any book like this again. Truly rare. One of a kind.

~ Finished it (roughly) on 8 September 2005

Quotes

“I hate to be where she is not, when she is not. And yet, I am always going, and she cannot follow.” ~ Henry

Award
Longlisted for 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction