In this wonderfully creative book, a high school freshman named Charlie tries to deal with his life through a series of letters to an anonymous friend who never writes back. He doesn’t want anyone to reply, he simply likes the idea of knowing that somewhere out there, another person knows his innermost thoughts. You never know if there really is one specific someone reading these letters or if he’s just writing to random people, whatever the case may be it brings him comfort and helps him deal with his hard times. Charlie is a mellow kid who feels more like an observer than a participant in his own life. He watches people but never joins in. The book starts out with him remembering his only friend’s suicide earlier in the year. All he wants is a friend and then he meets Patrick and Sam. Charlie falls deeply in love with Sam but she can’t love him back in that way. They all live in somewhere in the mid west. The book doesn’t actually tell you where at specifically though, you just assume with the description he gives. Charlie’s home life is generally supportive. His mother loves him and always tell him he can achieve things, while his father is more distant but never abusive. Charlie makes you think he has it worse than he does. His hunky older brother has just started his freshman year playing football for Penn State, and his sister is a high school senior developing some very bad habits when it comes to boys. Their relationship is one of the most interesting in the book; take for instance this quote from the book… ”I hate you.” My sister said it different than she said it to my dad. She meant it with me. She really did. Through out the book Charlie talks about pop culture and how one of his favorite memories involves watching the series finale of M*A*S*H. He makes a mix tape for Sam which includes a Simon and Garfunkel song. The way Charlie describes these things makes you feel as if you are there with him, or that you are the anonymous person he’s writing too. I think that is a big point in this book, to make you feel as if you are the person he’s writing too. It makes you feel involved. What I really liked about The Perks of Being a Wallflower is how Charlie wasn’t afraid to talk about t drugs, sex, homosexuality, abortion, rape, and other things like that. It makes you realize how high school really is. We all know what sex, drugs and rock and roll are. We weren’t hidden is a shell our high school and teen years. The fact that he talks about real things makes you feel how he really feels, we all felt that way at some point, we all felt the pain of feeling unwanted and not loved, then we find out the truth. Stephen Chbosky did a good job on describing the characters and making you feel as if you knew them or you were one of them. He takes feelings and looks that we all have and puts them in the characters so you feel part of them, but then he makes them so original and themselves, especially Charlie, Patrick, and Sam. Everyone had their own special and unique personality. Charlie was the smart, shy, caring, secretive, emotional boy, Patrick was open-minded, funny, loving, homosexual, and Sam was the pretty- smart one that everyone wanted. Personally, I thought the book was very easy to read. The words they use and the descriptiveness pulls you in and you don’t want to put it down, plus you can read it in one sitting because its only 213 pages long. Even though it’s a small book it feels large. It has so much depth and love in it. I think the main message of this story is that you need to stay true to yourself. Don’t live for others, live for you. Be who you are and never give up on yourself because you’re perfect the way you are. Charlie ended up realizing this with the help of his friends. Don’t we all wish we had friends that nice?

Recommended: Yes