Steve Margolis sees letters and numbers as colors (among other things). For many years he thought this was so strange that he expended huge amounts of mental energy covering up his weirdness. In reality, while seeing letters and numbers as colors is unusual, it is a documented neurological condition called synesthesia. What a synesthete experiences is different from other synesthetes, but they all have in common some sort of crossed senses. The Toaster Oven Mocks Me
is the author’s story of dealing with synesthesia. The book caught my eye because my daughter has synesthesia (ever tried to make sense of math problems when two numbers are dating, two other numbers are fighting, and they all appear in different colors?). It was pretty well written, in a conversational tone like the author was just sharing his life with colors one on one. There were occasional grammar errors. It’s short so it reads fast. It absolutely must be read on a device with color as the colors of letters are very important to his story. I recommend this book to anyone who knows someone with or is interested in synesthesia (though it might annoy another synesthete because as my daughter said, “Those colors are all wrong!”).
4 (out of 5) Stars
Books Read in 2017: 156
Pages Read in 2017: 42,203
Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks (more book reviews!)
Reason I Chose It: Birthstone Bookology (T in TOPAZ)