The Speed of Dark

When you are a kid you believe everything that an adult tells you.  What happens from there on in can go two different ways.  Either you can believe it as the truth for the rest of your life, or you will see it as a lie and act accordingly.  That’s a pretty simplistic approach, I could wax poetic about the many different kinds of lies and how, when we acquire wisdom as we grow up, we learn to interpret them and realise our own truths.  I have spent a great deal of my adult life re-interpreting my past and finding new truths every year (every day!) with the changing of my own perspective.
But what if you didn’t question what you were told?  What if you lived your life with blinders on believing that what was said to you was absolute and that  there was no alternate paths to take?  I shudder to think what my life would have been like now if I had listened and followed faithfully what my own adults told me.
That is what is at the heart of this wonderful book.  Beliefs and the ability to change them when they no longer make sense.
When I first started reading this book I was a little worried that it would be like Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, the theme is similar after all.  The journey the protagonist goes through was fascinating
I loved Lou,  and, admittedly I was picturing Benedict Cumberbatch when I was reading it.  I have found this year that reading about the process a person goes through, mentally, the struggles to understand adversity, and the natural conclusions each character made to reach their own ultimate goal, engaged my interest and had me riveted to my reading chair, eager to see what the results where in each epiphany.  I loved this story and will be looking for more by Elizabeth Moon.