4.5, rounded up. I was introduced to Flowers for Algernon in high school. It was the first stage production I was ever cast; a partygoer without lines in one of the scenes. After seeing the movie 1968 movie Charly a few years later in college, I always meant to read the book. I just got around to it. 

What I found was Daniel Keyes' masterwork about 32-year-old Charlie Gordon, a baker's helper with an IQ of 68. Despite his limited capacity, Charlie attends reading and writing classes in the hope of increasing his intelligence, which makes him the perfect candidate for a radical experiment to surgically increase someone's intelligence.

Written from Charlie's point of view as a series of progress reports, readers see Charlie's transformation as both a story and writing mechanism, which Keyes does brilliantly. What begins as short, error-prone sentences becomes a well-written narrative of an intelligent man but with a stunted emotional intelligence despite having an eventual IQ of 185 or more. In doing so, Keyes explores several themes: prejudice against the disabled, the conflict between intellect and emotion, the intricacies of loneliness, and what constitutes a better quality of life.

My only criticism of this wonderfully told story is how it comes crashing down at the end, with what seems to be a little less detail than how it begins. It's also the kind of book that leaves one a bit melancholy, given that it is mostly void of likable characters, perhaps even more so as the book has aged. Still, while not a favorite, it easily fits among my "must read" sometime-in-a-lifetime books. Readers will come out smarter and more empathetic, even if the character may not.