Set in a parallel America, Pearson Converse struggles to 'get with the program', when the Mental Parity movement takes hold and takes over.
Having left her Jehovah's Witness family at 15, she becomes best friends with the popular girl at school, Emory Ruth. Mania is Converse's memoirs - from a glimpse into her childhood, her relationships and aspirations, and how these are all affected and changed when the world around her changes.
Referring to people as dumb is frowned upon. Referring to people as smart, implies others are dumb, and is therefore... frowned upon. Mania documents how this new attitude to intelligence develops over the years, until the idea becomes out of control.
I enjoyed the character development, and how Shriver imitates life. She understands that it can take years of small changes and ignorance for an idea like this to become ingrained into a society's thinking, before you can really tell what the devastating after effects could be. This is portrayed beautifully in her writing.
Unfortunately, the ending felt incredibly rushed, and personally political. The final few chapters became very blunt, listing all the events that have happened in the last few years very matter-of-factly, and just listing them as 'stupid'. I appreciate that it followed on from the memoirs, however it lost its literary flow and just felt like Shriver bashing recent political decisions she herself didn't agree with.
What should have been a brilliant expedition into humanity's ability to defend their beliefs, ironically became Shriver's personal disdain of those with 'alternate processing'.
Having left her Jehovah's Witness family at 15, she becomes best friends with the popular girl at school, Emory Ruth. Mania is Converse's memoirs - from a glimpse into her childhood, her relationships and aspirations, and how these are all affected and changed when the world around her changes.
Referring to people as dumb is frowned upon. Referring to people as smart, implies others are dumb, and is therefore... frowned upon. Mania documents how this new attitude to intelligence develops over the years, until the idea becomes out of control.
I enjoyed the character development, and how Shriver imitates life. She understands that it can take years of small changes and ignorance for an idea like this to become ingrained into a society's thinking, before you can really tell what the devastating after effects could be. This is portrayed beautifully in her writing.
Unfortunately, the ending felt incredibly rushed, and personally political. The final few chapters became very blunt, listing all the events that have happened in the last few years very matter-of-factly, and just listing them as 'stupid'. I appreciate that it followed on from the memoirs, however it lost its literary flow and just felt like Shriver bashing recent political decisions she herself didn't agree with.
What should have been a brilliant expedition into humanity's ability to defend their beliefs, ironically became Shriver's personal disdain of those with 'alternate processing'.