The Perks of Being a Wallflower

i’m going in the high school this year so this is the perfect time to read this book. And holy shit, this was beautifully written, stunningly… Sad. I think that this book is just amazing at describing how it feels to go to trauma. I teared up multiple times. I can’t recommend this book enough!

amazing. incredible. a new favorite

One of my favorite books of all times.

5 stars. i watched the perks of being a wallflower when i was young, and the importance and raw emotion of this story didn’t quite click in my brain. i revisited it at an older age and this story brought forth emotions deep inside me that i didn’t even know i had. a beautifully written novel that deserves to be read over and over again. still one of my favorite pieces of literature.

This book provides a journey into a young’s man search for friendship as well as understanding why he feels he doesn’t belong anywhere. He expresses his feelings of being adrift through a series of letters written to an unnamed friend.

In part one of the book, Charlie details his family life including an older brother who is going to college on a football scholarship and a sister who is a senior in high school. Charlie is saddened by the death of his friend Michael and has a strong desire to make more friends. Charlie overthinks everything and is constantly anxious but doesn’t know why. By the end of part one, Charlie has made two friends who are Sam and her stepbrother Patrick.

In part two of book, Charlie enjoys the friends he has with Sam and Patrick since they accept him the way his is without judgment. Later in the chapter, he shares a story about Patrick’s romantic relationship and his romantic feelings for Sam. By the end of this part of the book, Charlie has his first kiss.

In part three of the book, Charlie is recovering from a bad drug trip and begins smoking as a coping mechanism to stop being anxious. During this part of the book, Charlie gets a girlfriend named Mary Elizabeth but discovers quickly that the relationship is one sided and she only talks about herself. Eventually, him and Mary Elizabeth break up over due to Charlie making a wrong decision at a Christmas party.

In part four of the book, Patrick’s hidden relationship is brought to light with violent results, Charlie deals with the reality of Sam and Patrick graduating from high school and therefore leaving him. Charlie and Sam share a intimate moment but it’s cut short when Charlie freaks out but doesn’t know why.

The book ends with an epilogue in which Charlie explains that he has been in the admitted into the hospital as well as sharing a traumatic childhood experience at the hands of his favorite aunt.

This book provides a genuine glimpse into the mind of a teenage boy as well as show the transformation of a young man from someone constantly questioning everything to a someone who is confident about who he is and what he wants out of life.

Not what I thought it would be. Interesting to have a modern novel written in letter/diary style. It brought back allot of memories of the nineties.

Unnecessarily childish writing

my favorite book ever! read it for the first time as a 15 year old, then again this summer and i was shocked with how little i understood the first time i read it. i think every highschooler should read this book many times to understand life better

The back of this novel describes it as a meditation on passion vs. passivity, the story of growing up, and the modern American high school experience in book form. While I don't completely disagree with these things, that's not what I think this book is about. I think it's about silence, the benefits and lack thereof; families, and how they perpetuate cycles; and "participation" (as Charlie would put it) as a way to destroy silence. This book is about abuse and all the ways we perform it upon each other. Maybe that is the modern American high school experience. It certainly has a lot to do with growing up.

It's also been said that this book is "in the tradition of"

The Catcher in the Rye, and while I see why, I have to say that reading

TCINR is like being dumped into an adolescent's brain, while reading

Perks is more like being dumped into one's world. Big difference.

YA..... Aaaarrrrgggghhhhhh.....

I hate YA books, where people seem so stupid for silly things. I hate to think that i too went through this phase of life, a dumb phase.

It was a OK read. You won't loose much even if u skip some pages, may be some sex scenes or partying or some suicides or drugs, alcohols. Is a teen life full of these? Well mine never was, so I always find it difficult to relate to the events in YA books. What is common in YA and my YA life, is dumbness :P

Charlie, narrates the story to the readers with letters (only good part in this book). He has a good family, not goody goody but average caring one, but still he has to cry over all the silly things, he struggles to keep himself sane, he drinks, he gets stupid friends (yet a little caring), he smokes pot, watches his sister having sex (how ridiculous) and rape(too much)...

And the climax was horrible...Chbosky has tried to fill in all the bad things that can happen in a teen school life in to charlie's life. That was unbearable and unfair. How can these may things happen only to him and effect only him?

Only the narration saved it from getting 1 star from me :)