ISBN: 978-1451696196
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky is not a new book. In fact it was originally published in 1999 but it seems the world was not quite ready for a story of this magnitude. With its most recent publication this book has shot into stardom and has even become the foundation for a movie with the same name. Throughout this story a teenage boy is struggling to make sense of the world and struggling to make his way through it the best way that he can. Of course any teen can tell you that’s not as easy as it sounds.
Being a Wallflower
Charlie is a wallflower, someone that doesn’t stand out and doesn’t really make a lot of difference. But he’s not so discontent with that. In fact, Charlie simply feels invisible most of the time. So what’s an invisible boy with perfectly normal feelings and emotions supposed to do with his thoughts? For Charlie the best option is to write them into a series of letters to some unknown person, after all, it’s far easier to be 100% honest with someone you do not know and will never even meet.
Charlie’s new year of high school starts out pretty much the same as every other year of school. But then things start to change for him as he meets new people and starts getting involved in new things that he has never experienced before, like drugs, drinking and sex. Charlie has never been in trouble and has never experimented with anything so these new experiences and all the things that his new friends do are amazing to him and of course, he writes them all down in his letters to his mystery friend, even secrets about himself that no one else knows.
This book has been considered controversial because of its portrayal of these experiences but it has also been considered a very truthful and honest accounting by many others for those same things. The best way to determine it’s true purpose and true abilities is most definitely to read it yourself. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is all about the story of a young boy and his adventures as he grows from a child into being a teenager and as he goes from naiveté to full knowledge of the world around him. It’s never easy but it just may not be as scary as it seems.
