Book Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Book: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Description:

Charlie is a freshman.

And while he's not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his year yet socially awkward,he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it.

Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mix tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But he can't stay on the sideline forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.




Rating: 4 1/2 stars

Review:

This was short but rather intense. This book was told in letter format, the main character Charlie wrote letters to an anonymous person detailing his life. This was very well written because it truly was in the voice of the character.

From the first page I felt bad for Charlie because in the beginning of the story, Charlie is this awkward guy who doesn't really "participates" with life. I also feel like he's a bit unbalanced. He just didn't fit in at home or at school. Despite his awkwardness, Charlie was very smart and his English teacher saw his potential and would give him a lot of different books to read in a way to sort of gauge Charlie's intelligence (without Charlie knowing).

It wasn't until Charlie met seniors Patrick and Sam that he started to engage in life but not completely. Charlie was very socially stunted, he really didn't know how to act around others and sort of just went with the crowd because he truly had no idea what to do. When I was reading this I felt like there was always something that was holding Charlie back. And one of those reasons was found out at the end of the story and it was quite tragic.

There were quite a lot of happy and sad moments throughout this story. For the characters in the story, I felt like no one really seemed to express themselves. They hide behind something be it: drinking, drugs, lying, etc. instead of saying what they really mean. Even the characters who thought they were being true to themselves, were not.

By the end I was happy that Charlie had finally started to live. Following a rather bad patch, Charlie finally realized something once he got the help that he needed. In a way it sort of gave him permission to finally start to live.

I can say that after reading this, it made me appreciate my first year of high school even more because it might not have been perfect but it was so much more fun than Charlie's.