Book No. 25 of 2020
What a charming, delightful read. Both the protagonists are precocious, observant autodidacts prone to feeling disconnected from society, and being in their heads and watching them become friends was a lovely experience.
It’s very observational in both content and humor; there is a lot of philosophizing, and many rhapsodies about art, literature, music, and culture. For all its charm, the book doesn’t shy away from darker themes of death and trauma, which are interwoven masterfully into the story’s other threads of friendship, pleasure, and curiosity.
Similar Reads
Thematically, this book was so similar to If Cats Disappeared From the World by Genki Kawamura that I thought it was a little spooky I read them back-to-back. (Areas of significant overlap: philosophy, film, cats.)
Some parts of the book also gave me Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance vibes. (By Robert Pirsig, also Zen is way denser and not nearly as delightful as Hedgehog.)
The gentility and cross-generational friendship also reminded me of A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles.