A review by morallyblack
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

 

This book has lived on my shelves for a little more than two years when I finally decided to pick it up randomly on my recent quest to feel something. And boy, did it make me feel stuff. 

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of those books seemingly everyone has heard of, could even be a classroom classic and also has multiple of the most atrocious german title translations I’ve ever witnessed (I hate all of them). I feel like that is something Charlie and I could have a lengthy discussion over and honestly, I think that’s a great start for this review. 

Chbosky chose the epistolary format for this work in which Charlie, the narrator, addresses a “Dear Friend” throughout the book and his story is told via these letters. At first, we meet a Charlie about to step into his highschool life and being afraid to do so. Throughout the book, we get to witness his journey through a first year, finding friends, watching people and their stories, trying oh so hard to write his own, yet repeatedly stopping after the first sentence. 

I am not the biggest fan of the description “Coming of age”-book, but it is somehow fitting here, yet absolutely failing to grasp the scope of Charlie’s story. It’s not just coming of age. How could any reader of this book claim that it’s *just* that? It is so much more. 

When I was halfway through the book, I sent a text to my english-teaching-friend, begging him to have his students read this book if there is any way to fit it into the curriculum – and I quote, myself, yuck – “not for the majority who won’t get why this is such a classic but do it for those in the back, just watching, they’ll feel seen for the first time”. And I stand by that. This book is for all those who struggle, for those who have looked for all available exits, for those who feel like a spectator in their own lives and those about to be swept off by the current forever. 

Reading this made me feel seen. Understood and heard. And let me tell you, for someone who is a wallflower, who watches and notices and gives thoughtful gifts and shares little snippets and treasures hand-copied poems more than a freshly printed and bought book … being seen and listened to is the rarest thing. 

At parts, reading this felt like offering a hug to Charlie. And sometimes it felt like he gave my shoulder a little bump with his, not letting me sit with my thoughts alone and applying brakes to the ever racing brain, gently slowing it down, one thought at a time. It also felt like sharing a drink at a party where everyone else fucked off to mind their business. 

Sometimes, it felt like glancing into a mirror and seeing all those broken pieces strewn about. Just when I thought, we might need the broom, one of the letters let some rays of sunshine fall onto them, sending cascading flickers of light through all those shards and creating something beautiful instead. 

And there also were times, it felt like someone ripped my heart out of my chest and buried it beneath boots and trampling feet, kicking it down the street.  

Initially, I expected this book to be just one of many. I wanted to read it, yes, but I didn’t expect it to make it to my favourites, to be memorable or to move something in me. I was wrong. I was so spectacularly wrong, I got up after 5 pages to grab some of my sticky notes and my favourite pencil because all of my whirling thoughts needed to be on those pages. I had expected this to be a book I’d place in one of those trading booths we have around here … now, I’ll never let this one go. This is going to be a copy, that’s well-read and looks like it. It’s going to have creases and knicks and little rips in the pages. It’s also going to hold my most vulnerable memories, thoughts and emotions between the lines of its own story. 

No, this book swept me away. I wanted to feel something and I did. And by that I not only mean the hours I bawled my eyes out after reading it.