The Perks Of Being A Wallflower (1999) - Plot & Excerpts
(this review has been rewritten in july 2013. The ultimate opinion and meaning is the same, though the communication of it, has changed.) DISCLAIMER:I did not like this book. I am about to try to explain why that is so, here, in my own, personal review space. I am critiqing this book, based on my own opinions, personal taste, experiences and perspective, criteria and standards for literary work. It is entirely subjective, as I think all reviews, per definition, are.I mean no disrespect to the people who like this book, and who have found in it something of value. You are as entitled to your own opinion, subjective readingexperience, and standards, as I am, and yours is just as valid. And you have the same opportunity as me, to use your own review space, to clarify that. We don’t all have to agree. One opinion isn’t ‘wrong’ and the other ‘right’ – they are both right, because it is personal.If you are a big fan of this book, and have difficulty in understanding or respecting people, who disagree with you, especially on issues that are important to you, I advice you not to read any further. I will not be saying nice things about this book.A note regarding my own viewpoint:I have a background in psychology and work in this field. The knowledge that I have of some of the issues handled in this book, and the real people I’ve met working in this field, of course affects how I view the book, and is actually one of the reasons I think, that the way this book was written isnt a very good approach to or description of some of these very real issues. I want to underline that I look at Charlie as a written character, not a real person, and I value the book as a literary piece of work, not as a real life story. To me, there is a huge difference between the two.That doesnt make my opinion any more 'right' it is only to explain where i am coming from. ------------------------------Some of the things that matter most to me in books are prose/writing style, storytelling and message. It’s one of the things that can make or break a book for me.In this case, the writing style just didn't work for me.It was just too lacking .Maybe it's the whole premise of the book, a story narrated by someone who is emotionally inhibited as Charlie, that didn't work for me? Maybe, but it didn't have to be. That issue and Charlie’s character could have been explored and dealt with, literary, in other ways.The book could have had Charlie’s narration interact with someone else’s (like an answer to the letters for example), or it could have been written in the 3rd person, maintaining Charlie’s point of view, but also being able to draw in other views, and how they collide with Charlie’s.I find it a bit concerning, that Chbosky wrote a book with so many serious issues like suicide, death, rape, social exclusion/inclusion, relationship violence, abortion, drugs, homosexual adventures, childmolestation/incest, parties, fights, without really dealing with any one of them in depth. To have all of these issues crammed into one book, without giving it the time and place it deserves, I felt, was a huge fault. Each one of these issues needs to be taken seriously, not pointed out on one page, just to be forgotten on the next. If you are going to write about these things, write about it well, give it the space and the in-depth exploration it deserves. To make the reader care for these characters, for these issues, the author and the characters involved must care too. I had a hard time stomaching that both Chbosky and the characters seemed to care so little, for something that is so very very real and so very very difficult, for so many people. It was almost making a mockery of them, which was very off-putting to me.The staccato writing and Charlie’s detached narrating, made me feel detached as well.The story is written in a very plain, very dull, very simple language, with the same sentences reoccurring over and over (eg. "..I don't know why.." , "He/she looked sad.")The emotional description amounts to 'sad' or 'happy'.The portrayals of Charlie and everyone else in the story was so lacking that they felt like cardboard cutouts and simply came off as what they were; made up characters in a fictional story (and not a very good one at that if you ask me).The main character, Charlie, is 15, but comes off as much younger than that. He seems very immature, more like a 7 year old. How a boy can live to be 15 in this time and age (yes, I know it was written in the 1990’s but still, even then, masturbation was a wellknown phenomenon), without knowing of (not practicing) masturbation, is quite a wonder in itself.Charlie also cries a lot, which wouldn’t be a problem, if it was more nuancedly described. I don’t want to see /read about just the surface tears. I want to be taken behind the tears, into the pool they stem from, the pain they are a symptom of and maybe a release from? I want the author to show me what these tears mean, I want to understand them, to be touched by them, to be moved with the ebb and flow of them. In this case, that didn’t happen. The sentence "I/he/she started to cry" alone, just doesn’t stir much emotion in me. Especially not when thrown about on every other page. Then it just gets bothersome and tiring.It's not that I have an aversion to tears (my own or others'). Crying is normal, and can be very healthy and soothing. But when it comes to a literary work, I expect the author to give more nuanced descriptions of feelings than just bucketful of tears. Okay, so they are sad. Very, very sad. Very often. Now, show me what that sadness does to someone, besides producing tears, tears, tears. I am not interested in the tears alone. The sadness is the root, the tears are a symptom. Many people are filled with sadness, but don’t produce many tears. Sadness can overflow in many ways. So: the sadness is the key. Which is why I was so disappointed that Chbosky never digged deeper than this very very thin surface. All I got was tears. And I wonder if all the crying came down to Chbosky simply not knowing how else to describe emotions, or how explore them.Much thought and debate has been given to the question why Charlie is, the way he is. There is the fact that he suffered from childhood trauma, and then there is the question of whether or not Charlie might be autistic. The latter is hinted at and up for interpretation, but never explicitly stated/diagnosed.The autistic spectrum is a varied one, and it comes in many forms, very few fitting the standard, but classic ‘rainman’ syndrome of a very intelligent but socially closed off person. It’s admirable to want to write about autism, a difficult diagnosis to live with, sure. I just don’t think Chbosky is doing autistic people any favors or justice with his depiction of Charlie as someone who might or might not be autistic.Again I must say: if you are going to write about it, write about it with care. Don’t make it into a guessing game, but own it. Don’t glamorize or deride it, but show its many layers and nuances through the particulars and the concrete. The same goes for the psychological trauma. It wasn’t given the care and attention it deserved. It was left at the end as an easy way out, like 'hey, he suffered/suffers from this and so i'm excused for writing a terribly boring book'.No.Whatever made Charlie the way he is, it doesn’t compensate for how the story was written and pulled off.To me, it's really besides the point, since I don’t base my rating/review on pity for a character.SO whether Charlie has any form of autism or not, doesn't really matter, because I thought he and the story was very poorly written. and let me be clear about this: It's not the disorder I have a problem with, it's the writing of it.Note (November, 2013): I recently saw the movie, and thought it was better than the book.Maybe because it fixed some of the issues I had with the book, like it left some of the drama llama out and it wasn't as heavily centered on Charlie's narration and perspective, and emotions and reactions was expressed through expressions instead of just (bad) writing. Different type of media - different possibilities. For this story, i think movie worked better than writing.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower: A. Free live sex shows but you are not allowed to tell anyone. B. Free LSD mixed in a brownie. C. Free to make out with girls who take fancy on you because you seem to be harmless. D. Free books because you are autistic hence you can finish a challenging book to read like Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” in 12 days and your English teacher wants to challenge you by giving you more and more books to read. E. All of the above. F. None of the above. I read this novel twice. The first time I read it, I was annoyed from first page to page 213 and I had no doubt that this book deserved a rating of 1: I did not like it! However, when I went through the existing ratings of my friends, most of the younger ones rated this with either a 5 or 4 and most of the older ones, either 2 or 3. I read their reviews and most of the older ones said something like “the teenagers seem to like this book.” while the younger ones said something like “I see myself in the Charlie’s character when I was his age.” So, I said maybe I should read this again, imagining that I was a 15-y/o man and see if I can relate to Charlie.That did the trick for me. Nope. When I was 15, I did not do drugs because I was still in the island as a 4th year high school student and I was sure there were no drugs in that small town. If there were, I am sure people would first prioritize buying food on the table rather than spend the money on drugs. Since we also did not have maids at home, I was busy with household chores: washing my family’s clothes every Saturday, ironing our school uniforms every Sunday, washing the dishes every evening (my older sister was in charge of cooking while my oldest brother was in charge of fetching water and the older one for washing dishes every noontime). Nor did I have sex because I was a virgin till I was on my last year in college. Nor did I have friends who made out in front of me because: A. I did not have exhibitionist friends. B. People in the island were conservative on those days so they frowned on homosexuals. I was sure they did their business in complete privacy so nothing like that came out during my time. In fact, during those years, there were only a couple of grownup men who I remember being referred to all so silently as homosexuals. But now, you go there and the homosexuals are all openly roaming the streets at daytime. C. I was a year younger than my classmates-friends and I swear I was clueless at the time they were already talking about finding their underwear wet in front when they woke up one morning or when their hair started to appear down there. In other words, I was not able to relate to Charlie but I still liked this book. Reasons: A. I dawned on me during my re-read that Charlie is actually addressing those letters to his readers, including me and he is a pure soul. Notice that despite all the sad things that happened to him during his first year in high school and even in the past, he did not bear grudges on anyone. He still see things positively and even wishes good life at all. This is in complete opposite to Holden Caulfield in J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye who is full of teenage angst he calls all grownups “phony”. [BTW, Chbosky in Wiki says that this novel is one of his inspirations in writing “Wallflower”. In fact, this is one of the books, Bill asks Charlie to read.]B. This reminded me of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of a Dog at the Night-Time because of its take on autism. Charlie is an autistic child who gets straight A’s in all his subjects and can finish and appreciate 12 adult modern fiction books most of which have “heavy” themes: To Kill a Mockingbird, This Side of Paradise, Peter Pan, The Great Gatsby, A Separate Peace, The Catcher in the Rye, On the Road, Naked Lunch, Walden, Hamlet, The Stranger and The Fountainhead just during his first year in high school. This is intriguing considering that Charlie’s style in writing barely changed from his first letter to the last so the learning or insights that he got from the books did not influence him in anyway. He is like a medical case in autism that whatever went inside his head while reading or the events that happened in his life during that year, 1991-1992 did not affect in anyway his outlook in life. He was a pure good soul through and through.C. Chbosky’s way of mimicking the sentence construction and grammar of a 15-y/o autistic boy plus the fact that the book is thin and slim encourages the reader to take this lightly, a book that one can breeze through and just say “the teenagers seem to like this book.” Wrong. Once you close the book, you will feel that there is something in the story that you missed and you will have that impulse to read through again. Chbosky hides his message on the simple and harmless looking letters, Charlie’s innocence and the unsaid words and untold stories, e.g., What is the significance of his favorite song Asleep by The Smiths in the story? (See the lyrics of the song at the end of this review). What happened to his aunt when she was a young girl? Why did Charlie’s father slap him? What happened to Charlie in the last letter? Did Patrick “Nothing” love Charlie? Why did not Chbosky give names to Charlie’s brother and sister? [In the soon-to-be-shown, movie adaptation, there seems to be no football-player older brother but his older sister has a name: Candance.] So, with these questions in mind, I went back to the first page and re-read almost every page except the ones that I found straightforward. I will not tell you my answers to those as that would be too much of spoilers. Overall, a very intriguing read. This is the first novel of Peter Chbosky (born 1970), an American novelist, screenwriter and film director. He wrote the screenplay of 2005 film Rent and he was co-creator of 2006 CBS television series, Jericho. So, he and this work, his first, should, in my opinion, not be taken lightly. That’s my only advice to those who are still to read this book. ASLEEP by The SmithsSing me to sleep Sing me to sleep I'm tired and I I want to go to bed Sing me to sleep Sing me to sleep And then leave me alone Don't try to wake me in the morning 'Cause I will be gone Don't feel bad for me I want you to know Deep in the cell of my heart I will feel so glad to go Sing me to sleep Sing me to sleep I don't want to wake up On my own anymore Sing to me Sing to me I don't want to wake up On my own anymore Don't feel bad for me I want you to know Deep in the cell of my heart I really want to go There is another world There is a better worldWell, there must be Well, there must beWell, there must beWell, there must beWell ...
What do You think about The Perks Of Being A Wallflower (1999)?
Wow, I mean just wow. I am blown away by this novel. Chbosky captured all of these moments, through the eyes of Charlie, that everyone can relate to as a teenager. Yes, there are a lot of issues in this book like rape, drugs, suicide, domestic violence, etc. The list goes on and on, but these things do happen in life. He touches every issue, but doesn't dive into the deepness. I like that he doesn't go too much into these topics because it speaks very true to Charlie's character.Yes, the story is not difficult to read and it does come off as being a little "too easy" in the writing style, but what people should consider is that it's supposed to be written by a 15-year-old, and they are letters. I don't know about everyone else, but when I'm writing letters to a friend, I really don't use huge words or make sure I'm using beautiful language to get my point across. I felt like these letters were written for me in particular (or even any reader directly).I am amazed at the character development and how realistic Chbosky made these characters. Everyone has a Patrick, Sam, Mary Elizabeth, Peter, Craig, or Charlie in their life (or characteristics that they portray). Even the relationship between Charlie and his family members were done so well, that I saw my family staring right back at me through the pages. They are so real to me that I couldn't stop crying towards the end of the novel. Plus, the literary references from various novels are just superb. And let me just say that the ending...was just perfect. There wasn't a better way to end Charlie's remarkable journey. This quote within the book says it all for me, "It's strange to describe reading a book as a really great experience, but that's kind of how it felt. It was a different book from the others because it wasn't about being a kid. And it wasn't like The Stranger or Naked Lunch even though I think it was philosophical in a way. But it wasn't like you had to really search for the philosophy. It was pretty straightforward, I thought, and the great part is that I took what the author wrote about and put it in terms of my own life."
—Kat Stark
Actual rating: 4.5 starsSo, I've read this twice now. The first time I read it, I think I was about 14 years old and I believe I originally gave it three stars. But after waiting a few years and reading it again, discussing it with my book group at school, and seeing the movie (which I loved), my appreciation for it has grown immensely. And I think there's a lot of things I missed out on or didn't sympathize with as much when I read it as a younger teenager. Thus, I'm bumping my rating up to 4.5 stars (and rounding it up to 5 because Goodreads doesn't allow half-ratings, hmmph). There are a lot of things I love about this book.First of all, it covers a lot of important issues without (usually) coming off as too preachy or trying to be too controversial. I say "usually" because there are times I feel when it gets to be a little too much. I mean, everyone's life in this book is really screwed up––and while I think addressing all these issues is important, it does feel like overkill at times and not entirely realistic. So, there are some parts that seem unnecessary to the plot. But for the most part, Chbosky handles the controversial subjects very well, and deals with them in a careful manner without hitting the reader over the head with it.Secondly, I love the writing. It's interesting how it starts out being rather mediocre and almost painful to read, but improves a lot throughout the book as Charlie learns more and more about how to write more skillfully. (Someone in my book group brought up that it was somewhat similar to Flowers for Algernon in that regard). We see a lot of growth in Charlie just in his writing style alone. And I just love how Charlie says everything, how can get across so much meaning in so few words.It's one of those books that is able to put complicated thoughts into very understandable sentences. I understand why many people feel that this book has changed their lives and/or saved them. While reading it a second time, I came to realize just how often I had those moments where I thought, "Wow, I've always had a thought like that but I've never known how to put it into words." As you can see below, I like a lot of quotes from this book. There are just so many little things in it that speak to me. (Random note: OH GOD I just accidentally turned off my computer but when I turned it on again this review was still here and didn't get deleted. PRAISE THE LORD.)Anyway ... back to what I was saying.So, I think that's what's the most important thing about this book. It speaks to people. And sure, there are a lot of people dislike the way this book is written or think it's unrealistic or that it's a pretentious piece of hipster crap. But, in the end, it has still changed a lot of people's lives. I don't think it has impacted me quite as much as it has a lot of other kids, but I'm just very glad that this book exists because I think a lot of suffering teenagers can find themselves in it. And although I haven't gone through a lot of the horrendous things that characters suffer in this book, it's still something I found comforting to read merely as someone who has dealt with anxiety/depression. Although it's a dark book in a lot of ways, ultimately it conveys a lot of optimism that things won't always be this bad. I can't find the quote unfortunately, but there's one part about just waiting for the happy moments in life ... and when you experience them, you try to remind yourself that you will be happy again just like you are now, and how difficult that can be. I'm not saying it as well as Chbosky does, but I just think that idea is so easy to relate to––that when you're depressed, it's hard waiting for those happy moments, but they do happen. And ultimately, you're not alone and you have family and friends who can help you.I'm kind of rushing now because I have to go out of the house. But I think that about covers it anyway. Basically, I think this book does a great job portraying high school life and showing depressed teenagers that they are not alone.
—Brigid *Flying Kick-a-pow!*
Exactly my thoughts. The author put in so many "sad" stuff you can find in any soap opera. Yet he utterly failed to convey the problems a real socially awkward kid in high school might face.
—Allie
