// "I felt every level, graphemic, morphological, and semantic, and they all hurt."

a novel marked by the ruminations of a potentially autistic woman who is majoring in linguistics at harvard, the idiot gave me the gift of a protagonist who i deeply related with. elif batuman has a wonderful way with words, especially when it came to providing us with the perspective of selin (the protagonist). i had read that this novel was in small part autobiographical, which makes sense because of how personal and intimate selin's contemplative inner monologues seemed. i also thought that selin's sentiments during the first year at university was highly reflective of my own similar experience of winding up at a highly competitive college and not being able to cement many close connections, resorting to writing and navel-gazing.

i do, however, feel that this novel is for a certain type of reader- specifically the kind who don't mind a plot that doesn't have events of epic proportions, as the main focus is on the inner contemplations of the protagonist and the pensive (and sometimes lighthearted) conversations she has with the other characters.