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A review by lillimoore
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
5.0
February 13th, 2023
Dear friend,
I am writing to you because Stephen Chbosky has touched the hearts of our collective inner adolescent. I revisit Perks every couple years because it is a quick, easy, heartfelt, gut-wrenching read. Because Charlie's voice is so sweet and sincere. Because we've all been 15 but not all of us are as thoughtful as Charlie with the foresight to record our coming-of-age experiences, much less in a series of letters, much less these days. And because some days, when I'm drowning in the swamp of adulthood, I want to return to that moment at 15 where every song changes your outlook on life, where every moment shared with friends matters so goddamned much, where parties don't already feel like just another party but like the first night of the rest of your life, and where we could swear we felt infinite.
Charlie is a 15-year-old high school freshman who is deeply considerate, contemplative, and emotionally sensitive. He has recently lost one of his only friends to suicide just before high school begins in the autumn of 1991. He spends his days reading, observing, deeply feeling and processing the world around him. At the beginning of this story, he is lonely and isolated, but then he meets Sam and Patrick at school, and they embrace him for all his eccentricities and show him real friendship and love. He connects with his English teacher who shows him how to think outside of the confines of assignments and connect with literature in a way that is necessary for Charlie. He writes to an anonymous recipient of his coming-of-age experiences, from his first kiss to his first drink to the discovery of some repressed childhood memories. We (the anonymous recipient) feel his love on every page of this beloved book.
Chbosky perfectly captures the voice of a traumatized, loving adolescent in a way that makes this book palatable and relatable to those who read it even a generation after its initial publication. He captures that feeling of being in the stands at a high school football game, of carving out your spot in the society within the school, of the first time you truly love someone, and of the first time you realize the things that have been done to you that were never okay. Sure, people might look at this book now and say it is riddled with clichés, but we really have Tumblr circa 2011 to thank for that one. Plus, however cliché it might sound, "we accept the love we think we deserve" is a powerful sentiment. And we have this book to thank for it.
Often this book is criticized for its handling of Charlie's potential spectrum disorder. To those critics I would like to remind you: context is everything. This book came out in the early 90s. The discussion surrounding spectrum disorders was nowhere near as prevalent as it is today. Beyond that, the main character of this book is deeply traumatized by things that happened to him as a young child. Trauma's impact on the brain can manifest in many of Charlie's behaviors in this novel, and it doesn't necessarily condemn him to any diagnoses that he went through those things. That criticism really bothers me and shows just how uninformed we are about the traumatized brain. I work with clients in this age group or not much older and Charlie is not unlike them in many ways. To criticize this book for that reason shows a level of ignorance that could potentially get in the way of this book falling into the hands of a kid that needs to know they are not alone.
If you haven't read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I highly suggest it. Even if you're an adult and it won't have the impact it might have had at 15 when I first read it (although, my boyfriend just read it for the first time at 24 and was deeply impacted), I think if you jump into this super quick read, you'll find yourself remembering how it felt to be that age. What the world meant to you then. How moved you were by the little things around you, or maybe even how much you never stopped to take stock of all those things. If we can take away one thing from our dear Charlie, it is that we should observe this world for its beauty and meaning as often as possible. It never hurts to be reminded of that.
Love always,
Lilli
Dear friend,
I am writing to you because Stephen Chbosky has touched the hearts of our collective inner adolescent. I revisit Perks every couple years because it is a quick, easy, heartfelt, gut-wrenching read. Because Charlie's voice is so sweet and sincere. Because we've all been 15 but not all of us are as thoughtful as Charlie with the foresight to record our coming-of-age experiences, much less in a series of letters, much less these days. And because some days, when I'm drowning in the swamp of adulthood, I want to return to that moment at 15 where every song changes your outlook on life, where every moment shared with friends matters so goddamned much, where parties don't already feel like just another party but like the first night of the rest of your life, and where we could swear we felt infinite.
Charlie is a 15-year-old high school freshman who is deeply considerate, contemplative, and emotionally sensitive. He has recently lost one of his only friends to suicide just before high school begins in the autumn of 1991. He spends his days reading, observing, deeply feeling and processing the world around him. At the beginning of this story, he is lonely and isolated, but then he meets Sam and Patrick at school, and they embrace him for all his eccentricities and show him real friendship and love. He connects with his English teacher who shows him how to think outside of the confines of assignments and connect with literature in a way that is necessary for Charlie. He writes to an anonymous recipient of his coming-of-age experiences, from his first kiss to his first drink to the discovery of some repressed childhood memories. We (the anonymous recipient) feel his love on every page of this beloved book.
Chbosky perfectly captures the voice of a traumatized, loving adolescent in a way that makes this book palatable and relatable to those who read it even a generation after its initial publication. He captures that feeling of being in the stands at a high school football game, of carving out your spot in the society within the school, of the first time you truly love someone, and of the first time you realize the things that have been done to you that were never okay. Sure, people might look at this book now and say it is riddled with clichés, but we really have Tumblr circa 2011 to thank for that one. Plus, however cliché it might sound, "we accept the love we think we deserve" is a powerful sentiment. And we have this book to thank for it.
Often this book is criticized for its handling of Charlie's potential spectrum disorder. To those critics I would like to remind you: context is everything. This book came out in the early 90s. The discussion surrounding spectrum disorders was nowhere near as prevalent as it is today. Beyond that, the main character of this book is deeply traumatized by things that happened to him as a young child. Trauma's impact on the brain can manifest in many of Charlie's behaviors in this novel, and it doesn't necessarily condemn him to any diagnoses that he went through those things. That criticism really bothers me and shows just how uninformed we are about the traumatized brain. I work with clients in this age group or not much older and Charlie is not unlike them in many ways. To criticize this book for that reason shows a level of ignorance that could potentially get in the way of this book falling into the hands of a kid that needs to know they are not alone.
If you haven't read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I highly suggest it. Even if you're an adult and it won't have the impact it might have had at 15 when I first read it (although, my boyfriend just read it for the first time at 24 and was deeply impacted), I think if you jump into this super quick read, you'll find yourself remembering how it felt to be that age. What the world meant to you then. How moved you were by the little things around you, or maybe even how much you never stopped to take stock of all those things. If we can take away one thing from our dear Charlie, it is that we should observe this world for its beauty and meaning as often as possible. It never hurts to be reminded of that.
Love always,
Lilli