The Perks of Being a Wallflower ~ Stephen Chbosky

For July’s theme of letters, I was a little bit lazy and reread The Perks of Being a Wallflower instead of looking for something new. It’s been a few years since I last read Perks and according to Goodreads, I have only read it once before which I don’t believe to be right. However many times I have read it in the past, it is the first time I have read it since I have become an adult and finished school. I found that my experience reading it this time was different than previously.

If you don’t already know, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky is an epistolary novel from a boy named Charlie, who is in his freshman year of high school. Charlie is a wallflower, preferring to stay on the edges of life and observing others. Charlie’s letters to the anonymous ‘friend’ describe the school year and how he navigates friendship, crushes, mental health, drugs, mixtapes and many other teen problems.

I really like epistolary novels and I think for a school year where the day to day doesn’t really change, it’s really helpful in telling how much time has passed without having to constantly tell the reader how long has passed since the previous page. I also like how it breaks up the chunks of prose so when you don’t have enough time to read a twenty-page chapter, there is still the opportunity to pick the book up. It means that it’s a lot easier to get through this novel at a quick pace.

Despite it being a few years since I last read the book, everything that was written felt so familiar as if it had only been a couple of months. Now that I have read it whilst not being in school, I felt like I focused on a different part of the narrative. Being a teenager and reading this whilst at school, I focused on the parts that I could relate to most which was the part where Charlie, being shy and introverted, struggled with how to act in friendships. This time, the high school drama just didn’t seem quite so important. Instead, it read more as a story on mental health. I didn’t think the differences would be quite as big at a different age, but it was almost like reading a different book.

Unfortunately, knowing the reveals of the book made reading some of the hinting passages very uncomfortable to read. Some part of me would like to read this book for the first time as an adult to see if I could see where the hints led up to or whether I would be as clueless as I was the first time. I never will have the first experience again, but it is still an enjoyable book.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower gets four stars. I probably would’ve given it five stars if I wasn’t quite as uncomfortable reading certain parts.

C🌙