Teen Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Review by Sarah, age 16.
I adore The Perks of Being a Wallflower so much.
This book is about a boy named Charlie, who is going into his freshman year of high school in the early 90s. He writes letters to someone the reader doesn’t know, telling them about his experiences throughout the year; from family drama to the new friends he makes, to the dates he goes on and the new things he learns.
Charlie is such an endearing character to read about, and it was no problem getting him to feel like a real person I genuinely cared about; in fact, this book excels in that. Charlie feels extremely real, and I relate to a lot of his feelings. I can even picture him being someone I go to school with. Throughout my time reading, I always longed for Charlie to be happy. I loved to cheer him on. I also found it great to see him actually grow as a person, with the story taking place in a span of about a year. You can actually see the change in him by the end of the novel. And I love that.
The other characters are great too. I like his relationship with his sister and Sam and Patrick. Charlie has interesting, dynamic relationships with these characters especially, and I can say similarly about other characters throughout the book.
The only criticism I have is, around the second half of the book, the letters seem to become less about Charlie, his inner dialogue, and his thoughts coming together to revelations, and become more about describing all of the drama going on to other characters and himself in his life. And don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the story and reading about these things very much (as tragic as some of it might of been), and Charlie still did write a lot about his feelings, but it just felt a bit different compared to the first half of the book.
All in all, this was such a great read. As a student in high school, I related to Charlie so much, and it got me thinking about my own life and my own time in high school and what I can do to make the best of it. Though the story takes place in a certain decade and has plenty of references to what was relevant during that time period, the stories and lessons and values are all so timeless and still relevant to this day. I completely recommend this novel.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky is available in:
Comments