The Perks of being a Wallflower - Steven Chbosky

I decided to read The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. This book’s first copyright date was February 1st, 1999 The Perks of Being a Wallflower is an epistolary novel about the coming of age of a boy named Charlie. Charlie, who turned 16, lost his best friend Michael to suicide, but then he finds Sam and Patrick, his new friends, and together they have new experiences.  The theme of this novel would be about even when everything goes wrong, and everything seems to be against you, you should keep on trying and make everything right. Charlie and his friends are all struggling with growing up and trying to do the right thing, even when no one else does it. 

This story is told by Charlie, in first person point of view. Charlie is writing letters to an unknown person about all his experiences with his new friends. He is telling him things like how he and his friends start to smoke, have different relationships, and find out who they really are throughout a typical high school year. The intended audience of this book would be young adults who like fiction mixed with real-life.The genre of this book is realistic fiction. The book fits into it because Charlie is a realistic boy, and he has real obstacles to overcome. The author keeps you interested with all the different things going on with Charlie’s life. Many teenagers, the intended audience, can relate to Charlie. The author’s style is effective for the intended audience because it makes you want to know more  and more. It also make’s you want to know how Charlie and his friends overcome these obstacles.

There are good qualities and bad qualities about this book. I think that the book makes you glad that you have many things to be thankful for in your life. On the other hand, it makes you think that in high school, there are so many things that could go wrong and that you can’t control. I think the author may have put one too many tragedies in Charlie's life. My recommendation would be that this book would be a great book that you could read for fun. However, Chbosky may have written his characters to be a little too emotional and literal. I did not like this because it makes the characters seem out of place compared to the reality of the setting and problems.

Zoe Troy

11.5.13

Rating: ★★★ 3/5