>a mother who (as she tells us) encourages him/says she loves him at least three times a day etc. Kevin had no reason to do what he did other than he was born a sociopath.

You obviously didn't read the book.

The mother was abusive and neglectful.

She played a significant role in Kevin's development.

>a dad who went above and beyond (the absence of a father figure is usually a symptom of the problem)

The dad was a part of the problem as well. He coddled Kevin and never tried to seek help for his mental illness.

Both of these parents were horrible and should've never had children in the first place.

>His sister was brought up in the exact same conditions and was a loveable child.

Abusive families often use one child as a scapegoat to prevent siblings from feeling any sense of solidarity against the abusers.

Honor's English classes high school, 1970s. Read lots of books, essays written on each. I was doing a lot of acid though and don't remember much. I know that I refused to read Lord Jim as part of our 5 or 6 book summer break assignment. Got a "B" on the essay somehow. Teach let us choose one book of our own to read/write about. I chose A Clockwork Orange. He made me get my parents' permission 1st. It was ok. I picked up a copy of Lord Jim this summer. Will eventually read it for penance. Also since Heart of Darkness is a GOAT.

I love both the author and the series, but Daniels is such an amazing narrator. I'm really looking forward to listening to Off to Be the Wizard!

Too much self esteem creates arrogance. It's a fine line between arrogance, and self confidence.

It’s like Iain M Banks’s Culture novels, there’s a loose framework but every individual novel can be read as a standalone book.

Looooved that book.

Authors get very meager payments from Audible; Audible is a terrible branch of the Amazon borg.

Dialogue was a part of my issue, as well. Sometimes, it would just stop me dead in my tracks, especially at a part with long stretches of it. And that's exactly it. I like the overall story, and it touches on important topics, but the characters just weren't believable and made it difficult to thoroughly enjoy. This is the only book I've read by her, though, so I can't say anything regarding others.

I can vouch for this. I study English Literature and Creative Writing at degree level and my latest piece was praised for including military symbolism which hinted at the conclusion of the story. I did no such thing, it was entirely coincidence. But thanks for the high marks!

Great point about Charlie's friends.

There are many studies that link high intelligence with depression. I wonder how much of that is due to external hostilities vs internal issues.

That makes no sense. He would want to find some middle ground. A key point was that when he was super intelligent, that made him just as different from others as being a moron had and therefore just as unable to relate to people. His driving need is human connection.

One of the few books that have made me cry, I want to re read it for a while now.

I don't think it's ok to do if it's supposed to be a direct adaptation, but I'm ok with them using elements of classic works to make a unique interpretation with a new title and everything. There's been a lot of good recent media that takes elements from HP Lovecraft lore to tell stories about social issues, for example.

I haven't read that one, but I have an issue with her books that I have read. (The Nightingale, The Four Winds, The Great Alone.)

She tells great stories and opens up subjects worth exploring, but her dialogue writing is terrible. It makes her characters less believable and takes me out of the story.

I "hear" dialogue when I read, as if the character is speaking. It often doesn't work for me at all when she has her characters speak.

She is lauded as such a terrific writer by so many, but this element holds me back from agreeing 100%.

I've just about finished it myself and I'd recommend it but have some mixed feelings.

Pros: It sharply portrays the brutality of empire with far more accuracy than most fantasy. There are the massacres, unequal treaties, disease, and boarding schools to eradicate local culture, yet the underlying driving force of the empire is the economics. The Masquerade isn't doing these things as the "dark lord's bidding" but to secure markets and strategic interests. And ultimately it's the cheap goods and bank loans that buy compliance from local elites.

It's almost as good in portraying armies, including the rebels, as hungry and vicious, living off the peasantry while dying of disease. The battles, like in real life, are a culmination of months of maneuver and logistics.

This all gives the main characters their hard decisions and internal conflicts. Do you fight for position within the empire or risk it all and rebel, plunging the land you want to save into war and famine? Do you rally the local nobility against the empire or rally the peasants those nobles exploit? Do the peasants back the nobles who directly exploit them but share a culture or back the empire that gives them some alternative but tears apart their traditions? No one has easy answers and there's a bitter thought in the back of their minds that even if they win a rebellion, the life they lived before being conquered is gone and irretrievable.

Cons: Despite all this, every main character is an imperial bureaucrat or local noble. The broad mass of people who's lives have been overturned remain firmly in the background. Occasionally they cheer this or that lord, but mostly they fight and die with their loyalty bought and sold in courtly intrigues. In real life the local social crises caused by imperialism saw bandit kings, religious movements, and other opposition erupt outside the local elites. As disorganized as these often were the local population weren't just pawns to be sacrificed. They had their own conceptions that nobles ignored at their peril.

A minor spoiler here, is that the empire itself ends up being a front for an illuminati style conspiracy which just undermines the rest of the book's emphasis on clashing economic systems and mass social upheaval. Instead the cryptarchy is somehow above it all. Thankfully they only play a very minor part in the book and can be ignored.

Nice thought experiment.

Hopefully he would have eventually overcome his disillusionment and begin to help others in similar situations achieve progress to some degree.

Be the change you want to see…or something like that.

Sure is! Though I think he made most of the characters sound like they weren’t bristling with intelligence 😉

Decent adaptions can be made. It depends on getting good writers, and a decent director. Otherwise it will fail miserably with people blaming woke, and others defending it because the people attacking it tend to be douche even if they themselves don't like it. Rather than actually blaming the writer for a shit job at adapting.

Being smart does not make one popular. I think that's covered well in the original text where Charlie's "friends" at the bakery petition to fire him now that he has equal (or superior) intellect.

Every adaptation will change the material in some way. What’s the reason for adapting a property in the first place if not to imbue some new meaning into it? If you take months and millions of dollars to adapt a story without breathing some new life into it, what’s the purpose? You might as well let the original stand by itself and not touch it. It’s like when an artist covers a song - the most interesting covers are the ones that have their own personal stamp on it.

It’s really up to you if you like the changes or not. If you think the story is perfect the way it is and doesn’t need any updating, that’s a valid opinion to have. For example, I love Disney’s “The Lion King” and won’t watch the new version because I don’t see the purpose in remaking the cartoon almost shot for shot when the original is already great.

Sadly it's only an American thing! Wish they would expand to Europe because it sounds amazing!
Though we don't have Amazon either, so maybe there's not as big a need for it but still. I usually find that my local book store is able to order home any books they don't have in stock!

Whether or not an author intends a specific meaning, that does not mean that the meaning isn't there. Roland Barthes discussed this in the 1960s. We always assume author/artist intent is the only proper way to understand something. That discounts how meaning is generated contextually - by the way in which the text is received and reflects the cultural context in which it is produced and consumed. Many artists can barely verbalize why they make art. Relying on them to tell you how to understand something is restrictive and simplistic.

Amazon has more sellers because it is the only* platform.

Most of the book sellers are Half Price Books or Goodwill.

As of 2021, Amazon charged a 15% fee AND a $1.85 fee for every book sale, left you to cover shipping, and you paid for your own warehouse. So on a $10.00 book, fees are already at 33.5% BEFORE shipping and handling.
Oh wait, there's the cost of goods as well. It's not like you're getting books for free (unless you're Goodwill). Publishers usually charge stores about 40-60% of the cover price.

So my ten dollar book gets me 6.65 before shipping and handling, 2.65 after shipping, 2.55 after storage if I have a great deal on a warehouse, and NEGATIVE $1.45 after I pay the publisher.

A $30.00 book will only net me $7.52 after that. From that money, I need to pay employees and invest in improvements to my store.
Bookshop just hands my store $9.00 on that same sale, and they store and they ship.

*I know Amazon isn't the only platform, but they've dominated to market to the point of monopoly.

My favourite line is when Alice comments sometimes she feels like she has to run as fast as she can just stay in place.

Why do you say that it's the "world's anti-intellectualism" that would make Charlie unhappy?

IMO, it would be internal issues (not external ones) that would make him unhappy.