A few pages into this book, I wasn't sure if I was going to finish it. The descriptions of events were so abstract that I felt I had a poor grasp of the story and its characters. But I stuck with it, and the book really came into its own in the second act.

In particular, the entire section where one of the characters approaches a psychiatrist because he has killed someone is very compelling. We don't know who he has killed or why, and we have just enough familiarity with the characters to care to find out. And the conclusions drawn are an excellent piece of character development in the third act.

But I was ultimately disappointed by the end, which felt abrupt and tacked on, as though Sturgeon felt it was necessary to find a traditional SF theme to end with. I would rather have seen more exploration of the central concept - questions as to whether the whole is really greater than the sum of its parts. In the end, this book wasn't.

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. I enjoy stories of people who share consciousness and purpose, like Sense8 or Escape to Witch Mountain, and I think this is likely one of the early influences of those stories.

CONTENT WARNING:

Spoiler

child abuse, mind control, mental health crises, loss of a child, loss of a partner

Things to love:

-The writing. This does not feel at all like the standard pulpy "golden age" scifi read. It's considered, experimental, and sort of urbanely "rustic" a la Tennessee Williams.

-The characters. This is NOT AT ALL what I was expecting, and just goes to show that we don't have to accept writers who wrote bad things because "that's how it was then." In this book we have people with mental health disabilities, people of color, strong women, people who've suffered various abuses, and all of it felt...kind. Even when bad things are happening or terrible people are saying terrible things, we are left to understand that the author has lived through this hurt with the characters, is demonstrating something with it, and thinks we ought to do better.

-The messages. This can be read on its own as a story about shared consciousness and telepathy and such, but we keep coming back to such human things that I think it's more a reflection on society, on what it means to be an individual, what it means to be moral, and how wrong we get it even when you try so hard.

Things I didn't love:

-A bit haphazard. The plot has a sort of meandering, dreamy quality to it so you accept what happens next, but there are odd breaks in this for a certain stream of consciousness meta analysis of the characters and their lives that gets a bit too convoluted or Jungian or something for me to follow entirely.

-Could have. A pet peeve of mine is people writing the contraction form of the modal verb (could have/ should have, would have) with "of" instead of 've. I think the author was doing it intentionally to show vernacular, but gosh it was annoying.

-Still a savior story. Even with all the women whom the characters admire, respect and cherish, we're still led to believe that the men are the brains of the operation and will save everyone. This was just a minor pout really as like I said I feel this book was more thoughtful in its characterization overall, so I don't think that was the intent, but this is my review and I get to huff about a quibble if I want.

-Ending. A bit abrupt. I wanted a bit more polish here to match the quality at the beginning.

All in all, this is a well told, complex story I'm glad to have read. Quick, insightful and fascinating.

I read this because Jesse Jarnow claimed in "Heads" that this was the Grateful Dead's favorite book. I can seen why. Homo Gestalt was literally how the Dead performed. 5-6 people acting as one. Will definitely re-read sometime.

For such a short book this felt very epic. I had to really concentrate to follow the story as it jumped about a bit but overall it was a satisfying read which dealt with some very philosophical and existential ideas. Hard to believe it was first published in 1953, although some word usage gave it away in places.

Gave it 100 pages, then wound up giving up.

I'm not sure what it is about old fiction (this is from 1953) that turns me off so much. I have so many literary friends that read a mix of old and new, but when I'm forced to read anything before, say, 1980, I cannot stay focused. (There are a few exceptions; for example, I found Tale of Two Cities and Jane Eyre captivating.) To me, old books are like old computers, outdated and dull and earth-shatteringly slow. I want this year's model.

This is a bias that, I suppose, everyone who reads my reviews should know about -- but it'll rarely be relevant, because I pretty much only read books written in the past 30 years or so.

A few children with special powers (think X-Men, but replace the capes with unwashed clothes and bravado with fear and neglect) come together as cast-offs and try to learn how to live and what it means to be human. Beautiful, very thought-provoking book.

Another classic from the golden age of scifi. A little heavy on Freud, but still a great read. Interesting distinction between ethos and morality to help resolve the final problem.

Enjoyed this until about half way through but then it became a slog. It was praised at the time it was published 70 years ago and it is highly creative but things that were more novel at the time - such as characters with superpowers and implicit albeit oblique critiques of racism and ableism - just hit different now.