The Perks of Being a Wallflower
by Stephen Chbosky
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Book Reviews of The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Book Review: filters and sponges
Summary: 3 Stars
More like a 3.5, but Amazon doesn't give half stars.
When The Perks of Being a Wallflower first came out, even the most dedicated pop culture ostriches had trouble avoiding it. Chbosky became a folk hero for the awkward, bookish high-school (or, more often, college) student with a penchant for self-doubt.
Perks does, to some degree, live up to the hype, and I can see why so many college-age men and women have fallen in love with it, but it is not the end-all-be-all of wallflower lit. Perks is a story about Charlie, a high school freshman who is very genuine and very honest, and also very passive. Although it seems to be the general consensus among contemporary fiction writers that "wallflowers" have a simple (not to be mistaken wtih simplistic) way of looking at the world, and Perks is in some ways a very simple book (it's a collection of letters from Charlie to an anonymous "friend"), it is nevertheless very touching and hints at a number of important issues facing contemporary (read: 1990s, when the book was written) youths and their parents.
Nevertheless, I find its stylistic premise unrealistic. I don't think that someone like Charlie would write letters to a stranger, because someone like Charlie would be paralyzed by the idea that he might be burdening that stranger. Likewise, by placing us fictively in the position of the anonymous "friend," Chbosky makes it impossible for us to experience Charlie's world the way that friend would. Because we are informed and recognize from the start that this is to be a book written as letters, and we are to receive them, we are rendered incapable of receiving Charlie's letters. Rather than confidantes, we are voyeurs, and this is the source of our sympathy for Charlie and our delight in his universe.
Further, Chbosky's psychological meanderings in Perks are more than a bit reductionist. Charlie's entire elaborate persona is dissolved into a single incident involving two people. Charlie's self-discovery effectively ends this novel, rather than causing him to further explore his own depths.
If participation is key, Perks succeeds admirably. The reader is drawn in to Charlie's confidence and Chbosky's writing. I found the book a quick read and an enjoyable one, but surprisingly unchallenging. Chbosky's approach barely qualifies as a critical one.
Read Perks, but "be a filter, not a sponge." It is limited by the age of its main character. A more mature take on wallflower life is Steve Martin's Shopgirl.
Book Review: Startling, Gripping, and Absolutely Honest
Summary: 5 Stars
I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky, in April of my sophomore year at college. A friend lent it to me and I had read it within twelve hours. This book reaches inside of you and pulls everything to the surface. It is a beautiful and painful story about a 15 year old boy, Charlie, moving through his freshmen year of highschool. It is written in letter form to an unknown friend. Charlie is always completely honest, whether he is describing his first "beer" party where he witnessed a girl being raped by her boyfriend, or explaining masturbation and his excitement for this newfound "activity." Charlie is a wallflower who observes people and feels very deeply for the experiences occuring around him. His favorite Aunt Helen died in a car accident when he was six, and he holds himself accountable, and his best friend committed suicide a year before he began the letters. His English teacher realizes Charlie's potential and brilliance and asks him to try and participate, which Charlie agrees to do. He becomes friends with two seniors Patrick and Samantha and begins to experience dances, parties, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, pot, love, bad trips and sexuality. We feel exhilerated when Charlie describes his happy moments, and we are swallowed in pain when Charlie is overwhelmed by his depression. Charlie's realizations are eye opening for us, and we are so captivated and immersed in his life that his life and stories become a very real experience. This book is about moments, and being as much alive within each moment as possible. It is about looking around us at the world and the people and appreciating that we don't know what their lives are like, and the pain and happiness that they experience day to day, so we shouldn't judge them but accept them and appreciate them. A favorite section of this book, for me, was when Charlie describes the movie It's A Wonderful Life, and how he wished the movie had been about one of the less heroic characters so the audience could have seen the meaning that this person's life held. That moment is just one example of Charlie's amazing intuition. This book should not be limited to a certain "category" of people. I truly believe that it would be understood, appreciated, and loved by everyone aged 12 (+ or - a few) and up regardless of gender, race, sexuality, etc. This book changes you, if only for a moment, but you are not the same upon completion, and you become more appreciative of life then ever.Book Review: A clichéd, forced mess
Summary: 2 Stars
I read this book for the first time recently, well aware that many of my friends when I was in high school (I'm currently a senior in college) raved about it and considered the book one of their favorites as an absolutely necessary read. I can see why they believed that (they probably still do) but I guess I just don't see the light.
There have been other reviews which comment on this, but the sheer amount of clichéd teen-angst drama make for a jumbled and highly unrealistic mess. People who loved this book have told me it that encapsulated what it was like to grow up in high school. Really? While issues like sex, hardcore drug and alcohol use, peer pressure and abuse, dealing with death and suicide and having some pretty severe sexual abuse problems certainly exist as fragments of adolescent lives, the idea that all of these issues and more can barrage a kid in one calendar year is too unrealistic for me to handle or relate to. Does a friend's suicide and sexual abuse need to even be part of this book to make it poignant and accessible? Teens, for all their supposed angst and emotional problems, also for the most part live pretty normal and healthy lives with spots of trouble that generally fade in significance as they mature and experience life. When teens read books like this, I'm willing to bet they are more likely to think they are as "deep" and "conflicted" as people like Charlie or Holden Caufield than they really are. It's as if teenagers need to read literature that says, "you're life is complex, unique and desperate" when most are truthfully not.
This is another book to be read with self-importance and pseudo-self awareness that invokes all the worst and rare parts of growing up and not enough of the quiet memories and stable lives which most kids have. Life can be complex and meaningful outside of tragedy and it's a shame that an author who writes in such an accessible prose chose to go the easy path and formulate a story that could be found in a bad lifetime movie. Read it if you want to, but don't believe the hype.
By the way, "Catcher in the Rye" was one of my favorite books as a teenager and it still ranks up there. Looking back, I believe that I was one of those victims of that "I'm deep and special and nobody understands the depth of my depthness and specialness" mentality that a book like "Catcher" can evoke. Yet "Catcher" is a far better book than this piece and will deservedly outlast it in terms of influence and readability.
Book Review: The "Perks" of Being a Wallfower?
Summary: 2 Stars
I chose to read The Perks of Being a Wallflower for a project for my english class. The reason I chose this book was because I heard from many people that it was a great book and they couldn't put it down. I began to read this book with very high expectations, however the book failed to meet my expectations and interest me. I then started to wonder what everyone found so intriguing about this book.
The book is written from the perspective of a teenage high school student by the name of Charlie. Charlie is writing a series of journal entries to an anonymous friend whose identity is never revealed. Being a high school student myself, I found that the elements in this book Charlie discussed were greatly exaggerated. If this is what is going on within freshman boys minds and bodies now a days there is no hope for the future. I found that in many instances in this book the author is a little too descriptive and very public at times. For instance, throughout the novel Charlie takes you through his experiences as a freshman in high school and tells you all about the issues teenagers deal with for example, teen pregnancy, homosexuality, the use of legal and illegal drugs, sexual experimentation, abusive relationships, a death in the family, rape, bullying, fights, crushes and dating, and both social and mental anxiety. Kit also seems as though every other page Charlie writes about how upset he is and he is constantly crying, in my opinion this makes the book depressing. To me no one is really interested in reading about this in detail. Everyone already knows about these things so why beat them to death on T.V., in movies, and now in everyday reading! It
I don't want to discourage anyone from reading this book however I personally do not recommend it. The book is good because it may make people who can relate to problems similar to Charlie's a little more comfortable knowing they are not the only ones dealing with the same type of pressure. For people who cannot relate to this, it may make them realize that there are many people in the world with worse problems than a broken nail. The book tries to teach a good lesson, however in my opinion it fails to do so. I think that the book would have been a lot more powerful if the author took out some of the useless teenage issues and go into more detail and express more of the negative outcomes of rushing things in life such as sexual intercourse or using drugs that can kill you. Overall I give this book 2 out of 5 stars.
Book Review: One of my favorites!
Summary: 5 Stars
Don't let the fact that it's an "MTV Book" throw you off - Chbosky's "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" is one hell of a book. The story itself is made up of letters that the main character, Charlie, writes to an anonymous person, telling of his life over the course of his freshman year of high school, a year that is a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. It's a beautiful coming-of-age story that captivated me when I first read it five years ago in seventh grade, and it still managed to mesmerize me when I re-read it a week ago.
This book is fantastic for a number of reasons. To begin with, the writing style and the flow of the letters are great; you get the feel that this is a kid writing these letters, yet it's not full of ridiculous, cliche phrases or slang or even a bunch of swear words. It just flows smoothly and sounds very natural, and you really feel like it's Charlie himself who's writing the words.
The book also encompasses many events and scenes that seem real-to-life; this is one of those books that you can picture yourself in, because the characters are so realistic. You can literally picture everything going on and see the events in the book really transpiring in real-life, because the characters are just that convincing and true-to-life. Many of the characters reminded me of myself or people I know, and that seems to be true for most of the people I know that have read this book. The book is so enjoyable, because it's so relatable; you can just see these things happening to yourself or people you know or go to school with. It's just fantastic.
Another thing that makes it so relatable and so true-to-life are the emotions. This book is full to the brim with so many different emotions, and they're all executed beautifully. One page, you'll be laughing hysterically at something that happened, the next you'll be gushing, "Awwwwwwww!!" and the one after that you'll be sniffing and trying to hold back tears. There is so much raw emotion in this book, and it's a joy being able to experience all of it for yourself as you're reading it.
I truly love this book, and it seems to get better every time I re-read it. It's been in my top five or ten favorite books for the last few years, and I'm guessing it'll remain there. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" is a gorgeously written coming-of-age story that every teen (and adult) should experience for themselves at least once in there life. Like Charlie, it makes one feel "infinite."