Book Review: Flowers for Algernon

“A child may not know how to feed himself, or what to eat, yet it knows hunger.”

Flowers for Algernon, written by Daniel Keyes in 1959, is a book about intelligence and incompetence. Originally written as a short story, it received praise so high that it was written as a full-fledged book. It follows a man named Charlie Gordon, born with phenylketonuria, a disease which causes the body to produce an amino acid that damages the brain. Charlie undergoes an experiment, which up until then had only been tested on animals. Charlie gains an intelligence so high that it ends up creating complications for him, both emotionally and later down the line, physically, since the experiment doesn’t change how he perceives relationships with other people. By the end of the book, you get to see Charlie’s sad downfall, a character you end up becoming so attached to and it’s tragic.

The story is written from the first person through Charlie’s journal entries. It is such an effective method of storytelling because it makes you so much more attached and almost close with the character and it makes the story more relatable. Flowers for Algernon is an immaculate piece of literary writing and it has by far become my favorite book. I would recommend this book.