The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Title: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Author: Stephen Chbosky

Age Group: Older Teens

# of Pages: 213

My Rating: 3/5

Charlie is a freshman in high school who is not exactly the kind of boy that stands out. The story of his life is written through letters to a friend, about his love life to his family life and everything in between. He befriends those who are older than him in school and learns new things through them. As the year goes by, Charlie describes his life in detail from the happy moments to the sad ones. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is well-known novel with a movie adaption coming out in 2012.

I am somewhat sitting on the fence for this novel. There are those who love it very much, but then there are those who dislike it altogether. Charlie is indeed a very deep, deep thinker. He likes to take random things and elaborate on it, even if it is rain for example. This I know have irked many readers due to the somewhat unrealistic way of thinking so much. But at the same time, had many loving it because it is something very different and had people relating to it in some sense. So I am a little bit of both, liking and disliking Charlie's way of thought.

Expanding on the previous point, I do like sometimes how he makes something so insignificant to be significant in the way of his writing. However, this wouldn't be the entire novel for me but bits and parts of it. I liked towards the ending where he describes how his friends are going off to college and such. It was just this warm, fuzzy feeling inside because I could relate since I graduated this previous year from high school. So there are those things in the novel that stood out for me.

What has to be my grand annoyance with this novel is Charlie being the biggest crybaby in the entire YA book universe. Never have I read where the protagonist cries literally every 5 pages over something mundane. I thought I was sensitive but he took sensitivity to an entirely different level. It bothered me so much how fast this kid cries by the drop of a dime and I know that if he existed, I would want to choke him so much inside if he was a friend.

Being that this is more of a day-to-day life story, it doesn't exactly have a plot. It is just reading into a life a boy who is experiencing things such as drugs and sexuality, like most teens. So there would be no cliffhanger or anything that would pump you up into finishing the novel. I guess you'd love to read it if you like the style of writing and Charlie's perspective on life.

Overall, I don't find The Perks of Being a Wallflower to reach up to the hype that it has around it personally. I think this novel depends more on the reader's personality, where you can like it either way. I would recommend this if you are the kind that likes the deep thinking sort of novel about life in the present. For the general person, you don't have to pick this novel up because you are not exactly missing out on too much.