Perks
of Being a Wallflower
Perks
of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky is a book that most teenagers can
relate to. This book dealt with a group
of teenagers with different personalities who were all friends with things they
have in common, but each special in their own way. You are introduced to the protagonist whose
name is Charlie. Charlie has a hard time fitting in in school, he has recently
lost his best friend Mike and to top it off he also has anxiety. He feels as if
his family doesn’t understand him and how different he is and the only person
who did which was his aunt Helen has passed away from a car accident. In high
school Charlie meets his two best friends. They are step siblings and both
seniors. Patrick and Sam show Charlie the real world and how to enjoy life to
the fullest. They get Charlie into doing various types of drugs and Charlie is
soon enough an addict to smoking cigarettes. These two people in a way have
helped Charlie open up and grow up. There is another person in Charlie’s life
that helped show him how special he is. Charlie’s freshman English teacher
named Bill. He asks Charlie to read difficult books and write essays on them to
show Charlie how special and talented he is. Throughout the whole book Charlie
writes anonymous letters to someone telling them of what has happened throughout
his freshman year. At the end of the book Charlie has landed in the hospital
due to a traumatic secret. Patrick and Sam and along with all of his friends
graduate that year and Charlie is once again left alone and faces the problem
of being isolated.
Stephen
Chbosky does a fabulous job writing
this book. He makes the whole book in letter form which makes it really easy to
follow and understand what’s going on in the book. He also doesn’t use that much
sophisticated language so even the average teenager isn’t confused about
anything. The book flows very nicely because of the way it’s written and the
letters are in chronological order. As
said before this book is very helpful to those teenagers in high school who
could relate to any of the characters in this book. In every high school there
is a person who feels isolated, does drugs, feels like they don’t belong, and
the popular one and so on and this book has one of each person. This book was
also turned into a movie which I haven’t seen yet but I hope it’s as great as
the book. This book has wanting me to read more books by the author and
hopefully find another book that I love so much. I would defiantly recommend
this book to teenagers especially those who are sixteen to eighteen. I would
also recommend this book to young adults due to maybe something they went
through when they were younger and know that they weren’t the only ones. The
book is defiantly worth having in the library collection because of how popular
it is amongst teens and the effect it has on you after reading it. It makes you
feel like you were a part of Charlie’s experience even if you don’t do the same
things he does. Crystal G.; Teen Reviewer