JAN Review: Perks of Being a Wallflower

January review for the Eclectic Reader's Book Challenge 2013: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, 1999. Translated to screen by Stephen Chbosky, 2012.

SUMMARY: Charlie is a shy, incoming freshman who has had some problems in his life. In a series of letters to an unnamed recipient, he details his first year of high school and his quest to "participate" more, balancing his natural strangeness with a desire to fit in and make friends. Alternately heartwarming and heartbreaking, Charlie's words take us through his first year, through reading extra books from Bill, his Advanced English teacher; through his first foray into dating, even though it isn't the girl he's in love with; through his family problems, including his sister's abusive boyfriend and his father's quiet reticence. He watches, and he understands, but there are some pains that you cannot narrate, and these are the ones Charlie skirts around, the ones that we as readers have to piece together through his narration.

Perks is a small beautiful book. Written in short letters from a high school freshman, the prose is simple and raw and unsure of itself, but in its simplicity lies its incredible capacity to convince. Charlie, the protagonist, tells us from the very first page that the names and places and things we will come to love may not be the real names--but the entire book makes us question the difference between what is real and what is true.

I watched the movie adaptation of Perks of Being a Wallflower before I borrowed the book from a friend, and I was intrigued that the author both wrote the screenplay and directed the film. The thing I praised the most was that the feel of the movie perfectly matched the feel of the book. Some flashbacks or hints we received in the book were beautifully translated into faded montage cuts and voiceover narration, still allowing Charlie control over his world. It was a quick read, but a coming-of-age novel that still spoke to me as a nearly 22-year-old college graduate. I was especially struck by the epilogue, where Charlie gets to stand up in the truck bed for the first time as they drive through the tunnel. He starts crying because he is "suddenly very aware...because I was standing in the tunnel. And I was really there. And that was enough to make me feel infinite" (213). In my situation, trying to write and make money and figure out what I want to do with myself, the reminder that we can just exist and be happy is something that comes well-appreciated.

A little TV challenge as well

So last night I finished the two seasons of Reaper on Netflix.It was a good show, I remember my brother watching it when it was on, and it is one of many TV series that I have recently pushed myself through since the beginning of my senior year. If I want to be a critic as I've mentioned before or write for TV or something in that vein, I can't just work at the café and watch TV in my free time and call it a day. I need to do something with that, engage a little more, make myself sink deeper. So I've decided that from now on, when I finish a TV series, I'm going to try to write at least a little blog post about it. Whether it has a point or a review or a message is up to me and depends on the series itself, but I'm going to try to do it.

Reaper (2007-2009). Creators Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters.
Plot rundown: Sam Oliver is a 21-year-old slacker whose soul was sold to the Devil by his parents before he was born, and now the Devil has come to collect. However, Sam's fate isn't quite as hell-bound as it might seem: instead, the Devil enlists him as a bounty hunter, essentially reclaiming escaped souls and sending them back to hell in whatever normal-looking vessel is assigned to that particular case. Cue drama.
I liked the concept well enough, and the characters were well-developed from the get-go. Yes they were a little played out--Sam (Bret Harrison) is the whiney can't-do-anything-right anti-hero, Andi (Missy Peregrym) is the gorgeous and witty out-of-his-league co-worker, Sock and Ben (Tyler Labine and Rick Gonzalez, respectively) is the bumbling sidekicks who nevertheless accept Sam's new part-time as pretty much awesome. They grow on you, true enough, and as more regulars make their way into the ensemble, the puzzle becomes a little clearer. One thing I had a problem with was the incredibly heavy-handed portrayal of Andi as the saint, uncomfortable with Sam's seemingly cavalier relationship to the Devil to the point that she breaks it off with him. I do, as do many other viewers I'm sure, appreciate the irony of Sam trying to do good by working for the biggest bad, and the show dealt with it in a way that was almost over-the-top cheesy--there was no room for stone-faced seriousness. The character of Tony, for example, (played by Ken Marino) creates the Church of Steve for recovering demons to fight hell by doing good one day at a time after his lover, Steve, was killed in the first revolt against Satan (which was brought to a head by getting the Devil's cell phone number--who would've known?).
It was a wonderfully quirky buddy comedy, and surely cancelled too soon. While the writing wasn't always stellar, the soul-of-the-week plotline was less tedious than it is on other shows, mostly because the soul fit the weekly angst sometimes it was captured in the first five minutes. But complications always ensued. Rarely formulaic, the structure of the show gave enough time to all of its characters for it to feel like not just Sam Oliver's Problems every week.

The 2013 Eclectic Reader's Challenge

I've decided to do the Eclectic Reader 2013 Challenge, hosted by Book'd Out. I feel like this challenge will give me some desperately needed structure and help me start to write again. Adjusting to life sans college has been difficult, and I need something to keep me on track. I fancy this challenge especially because it requires different genres, expanding my horizons and talents, so to speak. If I ever want to be a critic, this is something I'm going to have to learn how to do and do well. I might start up something with the TV shows I watch, but I'm not sure. One step at a time. Anyway, here goes.

The aim of The Eclectic Reader 2013 Challenge is to push you outside your comfort zone by reading up to 12 books during the year from 12 different categories.
"Join in: The challenge will run from January 1st to December 31st 2013. Participants may join at any time up until December 1st 2013 Create a blog post committing to your participation in this challenge.
Select, read and review a book from each genre listed below during the year for a total of 12 books. A book may be in print, electronic or audio format.
* You can choose your books as you go or create a list in advance. You may combine this challenge with others if you wish.
* Where a book is identified by more than one genre eg historical romance, it may only count for either the historical fiction or romantic fiction genres – not both.
* You can read your chosen titles in any order, at any pace, just complete the challenge by December 21st 2013 to be eligible for the prize drawing.

Categories

Translated fiction

Historical mystery

Romantic suspense

Made into a movie

New Adult

Urban Fantasy

Dystopian

Memoir

LGBT

Action Adventure

Humour

Published in 2013"

I haven't decided which order I'll be reading them in, but I'll keep you all posted! If anyone reads this, that is. My tentative ideas are as follows--
JAN--Made into a movie: The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
FEB--Translated Fiction: Zorro by Isabel Allende
MAR--Romantic Suspense: Drawing in the Dust by Zoe Klein

the sitch

Here is my current situation. I just graduated (early) from the University of Michigan with a degree in English Language and Literature and a minor in Global Media Studies. I got into the film department late in the game--my last few semesters--and never got a chance to take any screenwriting classes, which is what I'd really love to do with my life. I feel like I did it wrong and didn't look ahead enough and now I ran out of time and don't know what to do. My mom keeps pushing me to go and meet with some professors, and I keep balking, but I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe because I've never written a screenplay before? I haven't written for myself in a long time? I feel like without that experience or at least evidence of my trying my hand at something, they'll laugh in my face and say that I should just stick to whatever it is I'm doing right now. Which, coincidentally, is up in the air. What do I do? How do I do it? How can I get into the film niche in Ann Arbor, at least? If I can't make myself write right now, how the hell am I going to do it for a living someday? What if I'm not any good? What if I don't make it? I know this is something I have to figure out for myself, but it's hard not to think about the people in my life and how I want them to stay with me and how much I like the way my life is right now. I like the people in my life, I like the surroundings, but I don't like what I'm doing. I mean, I like working at the co-op, I just don't want to do it for the rest of my life. I can't pull myself together enough to utilize the time outside the job because it's such a strange, shifting schedule that I can't make my body fit it. If that makes any sense. I know I can't have it all figured out, but there's a big leap between knowing something and understanding it, and it is one I haven't quite made yet.

I'm not really sure what I'm doing here.

I'm not really sure what I'm doing here. This is my second week of my first semester not being in school and working (almost) full-time, and I'm really having trouble getting used to it. More and more I can see that working a job like this and writing in my time off isn't going to make me happy, mostly because it's like pulling teeth to get myself to write lately. I don't know if it's because I'm tired or checked out, but it seems to me that all I ever do anymore when I get off work is drink wine and watch movies or TV. And yes, that is what I'd like to do someday, but I should be working on it right now. I watch enough TV and movies that I should be writing about them. Even if they're just short little blog posts. Maybe that's why I'm starting this. To have a place to go that isn't a journal or a word document to force myself into recording thoughts I have about the things I do on a daily basis. Writing has never been this hard for me before, but lately I feel empty. Paralyzed. There are six notebooks on my desk in various states of use, with to-do lists and plans and daily attempts at beginning and old poems that need new life, and my quasi-OCD brain is balking at writing anything down because I can't figure out where to put it all. I'm trying to organize my words before they are written. Hopefully here I can let all that go. One blog post a day, whether I'm working or not, that's my goal for this week. We'll see how it goes from there.