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.