Book Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
This is where I find out it really is my mind over matter.
I think there are many appreciators of this novel, written by Stephen Chbosky, that understand what it means to pour your heart out onto paper. The way it is done here in The Perks of Being a Wallflower signifies the waves vulnerability can make with people. People my age, that is, have talked about the movie for years now. There was something in that film that altered most of us pubescent, mentally ill children back in 2012. I’m not sure if it was the upliftment of youth or the beautiful representation of mental anguish, but as an adult I feel I see it more clearly. I reviewed the movie a month or so back and embarrassingly cried at a scene I had probably already saw countless times before, I’m unsure of why now it impacted me so greatly. I also had a memory of seventh grade, a girl in my homeroom class reading this book at her desk and I thought she was super interesting for reading a book that also had a movie. Nonetheless, it took me up until now to actually consider reading it. So here it is, my review of The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
**Spoilers To Come**
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is an unconventionally written fictional novel set in the 90s and narrated by letters from a young boy entering high school, his name being Charlie. Charlie is highly observant and empathetic to the people around him, his curiosities and introversions typically get the better of him, however he’s a deep feeler which leads to a charming retelling of some of his loved one’s lives. Charlie’s relationships are all very impactful, from his concern for his family members to his navigation in a friendship with step-siblings Sam and Patrick, he learns about what love can mean in different forms. High school is confusing and for Charlie it adds a whole new perspective onto his life, as he writes to an unnamed “friend”, he discovers what it’s like to participate in life. Turns out, it can be pretty painful, and even bring up more painful things from his past. This story holds a significant amount of detail surrounding depression, anxiety and PTSD and displays adolescence in a gentle and honest light while turning the Smiths into something like the Beatles but for moody twelve year-olds in the 2010s.
This little book packs a punch to the heart. I’m not sure where I saw this but I read that Stephen Chbosky was heavily inspired by The Breakfast Club for its depictions of high schoolers with different backgrounds and personalities. I found that to be a large reason why the movie impacted me so much when I was a child, it felt like someone was making art about my experience. And so, in the wake of a nostalgic longing for my youth, I’m reading a book I guess I had been too distracted to read before. I don’t regret it, not one bit. I think the themes in this book charge a protective adult in me and I find it difficult to agree that teenagers should read this. I think some teenagers can handle it, but not my teenage self. She was far too imaginative and reckless, I fear the ending would’ve escaped me. But I notice that it can somewhat stand as a cautionary tale to those of us grappling with a certain sense of emotional displacement, maybe to get the help and reach out for what you need.
The epilogue is probably the most important attachment to this book, if you can’t be troubled to read The Perks of Being a Wallflower in it’s entirety, give the epilogue a glance. I found that the Charlie we see in the movie is far more helpless, softer and less realistic. The Charlie that I read about felt more like a teenage boy, maybe a more emotionally aware boy but true to the perversions and misgivings that I feel every teenager presents. I want to cradle Charlie, I’m not sure what that says about me, maybe that I’m becoming more like a mother. I too was a wallflower kid, saving up my feelings for my writing and wondering about the people close to me. I used to be a Charlie, but now I’m Sam.
So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower had a lot of items that I felt i was still missing out on, even after putting in the effort of looking up and listening to all the songs on Charlie’s mixtape. I’ll be honest, I haven’t read most of the books Bill assigned to Charlie. I think the only two I’ve read are The Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby, which I also was assigned in high school. However, I do have The Stranger on my TBR, and since it isn’t a lengthy book I could probably squeeze it in between this and my next read. There is a lot to adore about Chbosky’s writing; the tone, the care, the vulnerability. The characters each bestow hybrids of humanity that we often observe but tuck away as a form of normalcy. Teenagers are some of the most interesting people to walk this planet, and to depict their existence kindly is a strength that only a great writer can have. There were so many times I felt like I was another kid Charlie was writing too, someone that still exists in me and thinks it’s cool that his friends invited him to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I mean, his friends were really cool and I knew that even when I was in middle school.
A lot of what has made this reading somehow even more enjoyable than watching the film was the revelations at the end of the book. Yes, the film touches on the inappropriate relationship Charlie had with his late Aunt Helen and captures the complicated feelings Charlie has about the whole situation, but I appreciated how healed book Charlie’s response to it was. Though he wasn’t aware initially of how badly he would be affected by it, eventually I think it becomes apparent that sometimes it isn’t easier to hate the people who hurt you. I just loved this response to everything I had read up until that point, it felt like a full circle of forgiveness, maybe it’s too predictable for some folks but I felt validated. For that other part of me, the one that revels in my underlying pain, I rejoice with fellow wallflowers in reading stories about teenage angst; the thing they call it when someone is already exhibiting mental illnesses at an early age.
So what do we take with us? Well, I am now fully present in the conversations about this book and movie. Not only have I reviewed my take away with others’, but I have also tried to apply what memories of my youth I have to compare and found The Perks of Being a Wallflower to be a garden of thoughtful representation and romanticization in introversion. I hope you, dear reader, some day give this book a chance like I did. I honestly don’t know what took me so long, but I’m so happy that I did.
An all time favourite of mine. Book and movie. I was worried when I heard it was being adapted so didn’t watch it when it was originally released. Real sorry I didn’t. It’s a beautiful film that always seems to lift my mood (which is a weird thing to say?) Great review.