Bewilderment

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Shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize - A Reader's Review

This is about a grieving widowed astrobiologist and his autistic young son. I enjoyed bits of the science and psychology but there were so many things I disliked about this book. None of the characters were believable or rounded, including the narrator or his son. I can't claim to know but I'd be surprised if it resonates with many people's experience of parenting kids on the spectrum, embracing too many cliches of talented, fascinating, magical near-savant (who he also massively infantalises by the way: "tiny hand", "tiny" this and that - he's a 10 year old boy for gods sake!). I also hated the way he clumsily brought in recent history - a President who is obviously Trump, and even a character who is obviously Greta Thunberg but he gives a ridiculous new name to! And he leads towards a dystopic Amercian vision which is miserable enough but so obvious and lacking imagination that it could have been lifted straight from some social media rants mid-2020 (cattle pandemic and wildfires raging, a President nullifying election results etc...). No idea why this book was on the list - and if someone could set me straight on that I'd appreciate it! - Tanya Carus

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