Title: The Perks of Being a WallflowerAuthor: Stephen Chbosky
Series: n/a
Publisher: MTV Books and Pocket Books
Publication Date: February 1, 1999
Links: Amazon | Goodreads
Rating:
From Goodreads:
Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie is navigating through the strange worlds of love, drugs, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", and dealing with the loss of a good friend and his favorite aunt.
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| Review: |
Wow. I must have exclaimed, “Oh, Charlie!” at least twenty times through the course of this novel. I’m not usually a big fan of contemporary novels, young adult or otherwise, but I really connected with this book. Maybe it’s because I was a bit of a wallflower myself when I was younger. Maybe because I’ve always been a reader, much like Charlie. Whatever the reason, I really enjoyed this novel, and it’s made me rather thoughtful and reflective these last few days.
Charlie’s tale is poignant and intense at times, but it also has moments of light-heartedness and frivolity. It was a much more realistic portrayal of the average teenager’s life than a lot of other stories out there. This was a story based on truth and brutal honesty, and yet it was surprisingly easy for me to read.
The characters in this narrative are not the one-dimensional characters that you typically find in a contemporary novel. They have real problems and real hopes, and they’re all doing what they have to survive high school. Charlie is naïve and likeable and immediately easy to sympathize with. He candidly expresses the happenings in his life to some unknown individual in the form of letters, and he makes it seem as if this is the most normal thing in the world. He’s peculiar and he’s aware of it, but he makes the best of the hand life has dealt him.
I love that although I knew where the story was going, it wasn’t predictable in how it achieved its end. And what an ending. Wow. Did not anticipate that. The story itself was good, but it was made that much better by that ending. It made it all so much more real. And harder to digest.
And with that, I’ll leave you to wonder and hopefully consider reading this book. If you’re not interested enough just yet, maybe a free copy would help? I’ll be giving away a copy of The Perks of Being a Wallflower as part of the Banned Books Week hop, which runs from 9/24 to 10/1. So check back on Saturday to enter!
"The Perks of Being a Wallflower" We all love this book. The reasons that I do is because the writing shows many details. Also, the writing is absolutely beauitful.
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