”The perks of being a wallflower” is a novel written by Stephen Chbosky. It is the first of his novels and it was published in 1999. It contains 231 pages of adolescent fiction about teenagers and their encounters within school, sexuality, violence, parties and much more. This report starts with a summary of the book, descriptively introducing the prime characters and setting while leading to the conclusion
At first, we’re introduced to Charlie the protagonist, who seems to be a rather smart, yet troubled boy. He’s 15 years of age and a recently freshman in High School. The novel is written in letters, starting with Charlie sending out letters to an anonymous receiver, while only giving his first name, to also remain unknown. Charlie doesn’t have many friends, considerably due to his major intellect compared to the other kids. He had a friend named Michael, who unfortunately killed himself for a reason Charlie didn’t know. He actually wondered a lot how Michael could avoid talking to him about his problem, which surely must’ve had a huge impact on his mental state of mind. Charlie and Michael used to do sports together, just to have something to do, not because they urged to, but because there wasn’t much for them elsewhere. Now, Charlie is pretty much alone and as for girls, Charlie doesn’t really know how to communicate with them either. The first person for Charlie to really talk to is a senior named Patrick who people calls “Nothing”. He gets to sit with Patrick and his stepsister Sam, who he later gets a major crush on. They all went to a diner where Charlie finds out, that Patrick is gay, but he’s truly honest about it. Patrick is the funny guy and Sam is the beautiful and smart girl, while Charlie has his charming underdeveloped social skills. Sam and Patrick doesn’t care about peoples rank or background, they aren’t the cooler kids at school, but they accept Charlie and they all become friends. Charlie has a sister himself, also an older brother. His sister has a dumb boyfriend and his brother is a talented football player. His parents aren’t really any special, just the regular parents. Charlie has a teacher at school, who he fancied more than the rest. The teacher even gave Charlie books to read, assignments for fun and gave him advice to his social life. Charlie’s new life involved parties, trying drugs and him getting his first kiss. He then unintendedly starts dating this girl named Mary Elisabeth, meaning it just happened. They all four go to this party together, where in a game Charlie is supposed to kiss the girl in the room who he thinks is the most beautiful. He then kisses Sam. Since Sam and Mary Elisabeth are friends, they get furious with Charlie and he ends up friendless, having to live the old unexciting life he did before. The protagonist spends the rest of the school year trying to reclaim his earned friendships and his ongoing crush, Sam, before it’s too late.
The setting of the novel is revealed on the very first page, as the chapters are split in dates of time in the letters sent. It starts in 1991, but could just as well have taken place in the present, as it reflects on every reader who has lived their youth in somewhat similar to just one of the characters at some point, which would surprise if that is not the case. The environment is about middle class to upper middle class, considering the protagonist as well as his friends aren’t too flashy, but neither poor. They live in big houses, throw parties and drink fine alcohol. His brother is also going to college and everyone knows that college isn’t cheap, which sort of confirms that their family is not needy of money. From a greater perspective, the overall happenings and placement of their ongoing are a bit extreme and too perfect examples, like a cliché of experimental youth. This type of writing makes it easy for the reader to picture oneself in the setting because we’ve all seen it somewhere before, which makes the novel reach a wider crowd of interest. The story is written in Charlie’s voice, as it is his letters we read. We read his words and thoughts as well as his in-depth environmental describing. As a reader, you get a good sympathetic relation to Charlie as his mood peels off on his writing in the letters.
In my opinion, Chbosky wants to show what can actually happen in the mind of the less visible people in school. The reader gets to see, hear and be a part the journey of the lesser kid from school and see that even though he might not be cool or loud kid, he still has one hell of a story to tell. As a reader, you also come to realize the value of a simple friendship when you’re used to nothing. Charlie’s life went from rather boring and sometimes meaningless to adventurous and exciting. Charlie is easy to follow and easy to understand. As a reader, I find it satisfying to feel taken on a journey where the protagonist clearly expresses his feelings, not only from a perspective, but also within thoughts. Anyone who has lived most of their teenage years will be able to not only read the novel, but also most likely find it effectively amusing to do a reopening of the memories that reflect off in the book. Chbosky also does an amazing job at writing professionally, but at the same time seem as if he is the 15-year-old boy writing it.
The novel is an appealing reconstruction of the youth we may or may not have lived. All the characters have such different personalities, which makes it almost impossible for the readers not to place themselves in at least one of the characters shoes and think of something in your own past. It keeps surprising you, because there’s always something that reanimate your memories from your own youth. “The perks of being a wallflower” is an adventurous journey of thoughts and memories that draws several characters together, combining great writing with great memories.
