Flowers for Algergon By Daniel Keyes Rating 4/5 Genres : Psychological fiction, Mental illness, 2022-read My God! This is some pretty deep stuff. Makes me look at mental retardation from a totally new perspective. The fear and anathema the main character - who is retarded - feels towards being laughed at and ridiculed is very tangible and visceral through the text that inspired me into absolute pity for him and hatred towards his perpetrators. Its a consolation that he is not used as a guinea pig by those ruthless and self centered scientists..atleast there was some humane element to the whole plot. Most of the abusive past the main character Charlie recalls is while he is becoming smarter as a result of a brain surgery and it is handled with some detachment and in a non emotional way which I felt took the sting out of the whole past for Charlie but failed to cause a stir in me as a result..I would have liked to read the same material handled by someone els...