Friday, May 3, 2013

Perks of Being a Wallflower Book Review


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