Baby Is Three Book Review

I thought I might read something quick this week, and I ended up picking up Baby Is Three by Theodore Sturgeon. Having not read anything by Sturgeon up until now, I was excited to read! Let’s get into the review.

Theodore Sturgeon published this novella in 1952 in Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine. He later expanded the story into a full-length novel titled More than Human. However, the gist of the story remains the same. In it, a teenager named Gerard meets with a psychiatrist. He explains that he killed his guardian, Miss Kew, and that he is also part of a race of new human beings he calls homo gestalt. Other children he lives with also come from this new type of being, with all of them possessing some type of supernatural ability. However, as Gerard explains his story, things turn out to be more complicated than they appear.

I had mixed feelings about this book when I read it. I liked the initial premise, as it kind of reminded me of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, if you’ve read that book. By the end, I also liked how the children’s abilities themselves, a source of mystery in the book, worked to create the big twist. The twist felt organic and unique, pushing the story back into the realm of science fiction rather than fantasy. However, I liked that it blended both genres together to create something unlike what I expected.

On the other hand, I kind of wish that the children had more personality outside of their abilities. For example, the title, Baby Is Three, comes from a sentence often repeated by the others. One of the children, a baby, remains stuck as a baby forever despite being three. This character helps out at the end of the book, but he isn’t explored much as a character outside of that, besides remarking on his age. The children might have been explored more as individuals in the full-length novel, but I’d have to read to be sure.

Despite my mixed review of this book, I might also try to read Microcosmic God and see where that leads. In the meantime, stick around for another blog post! Happy reading!

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