Odd book. Readable, but odd. ( )

Such a really good and heartbreaking book. I saw the movie first and loved that but the book is even better! ( )

One sentence summary: I didn't like the main character and I don't think I understood it.

The main character was very annoying. He was a bit too clueless, and while other people probably find that cute, I am not one of those people. But good for him, finding people in-universe who put up with him. I'm happy that happened.

But sometimes, obviously, his cluelessness was just way too over the top, and it annoyed the shit out of me. Especially with the whole "kiss the most beautiful girl"-thing and going up to his dead friend's ex-girlfriend. Like, from Charlie's perspective they were not-so-great-moments, but look at them from the girls' perspective and it's downright fucking cruel, both times. Who does that!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

As for not understanding it ... I don't know what the revelation at the end was meant to do for me? It seemed like the biggest fucking deal in the entire book happened over just a few pages, mostly off-screen, and that's just weird to me. Shouldn't that have been a bigger deal or something? I know it was hinted at, and I'm sure rereading it would be very interesting, but still ... it seemed off or something. I don't know why it happened or what I was meant to take away from it.

Then again, I am way older than the target audience and possibly I would have felt different had I read it when I was younger. There definitely was parts of it that I did like, and it wasn't by any means a bad book or anything. ( )

I was on Tumblr for a long time, about five years, before I quit going on it and just started using Facebook more. While I was there, the movie for this book came out and I never got the chance to see it because I saw so many people that glorified it and it honestly made me feel like The Twilight Saga did when it came out – overhyped and not that good.
I did, however, decide to read the book. And…I was disappointed.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is about a young boy named Charlie who starts high school. He’s troubled and has always been a quiet boy with not a lot to say and not a lot of friends. His best friend killed himself prior to the start of the story and it’s heavily implied that Charlie is trying to get through things by writing these letters to this person (the reader, anyway) to try and process what’s happening and to try and appreciate things more. He feels he hasn’t always appreciated things and hasn’t always ‘lived in the moment’. When he starts high school, he starts hanging out with two seniors who are step siblings – Sam(antha) and Patrick. They take him under their wing and introduce him to new music, new experiences, and new friends. He starts to enjoy his time with them and starts to experiment with girls, with drugs, with performing in the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and it’s nice to see the story of somebody who didn’t have friends suddenly start to come out of their shell.
My problem with the book isn’t that. My problem with the book is other things.
The plot is fine, don’t get me wrong. As a person who was bullied at school and who didn’t have a lot of friends growing up, I get where Charlie is coming from. My problems are with other choices the author made.
Firstly, why the hell does Charlie write so boringly? For somebody who reads a lot, the way he writes is incredibly limited and is everything that our creative writing teachers have always told us not to do. He’s just an incredibly boring writer. I get that he’s a young teenager and so he’s not supposed to be incredibly talented or well-versed with language, but his writing is often too simplistic for somebody who is apparently really good at English and is being given a lot of extra credit by his teachers.
Secondly, the author glosses over a lot of the issues brought up in the book. The author tells us about Charlie experimenting with drugs and sex, but he never goes into the implications that all this could have on somebody who’s barely sixteen yet. He does weed and LSD and he drinks a lot and he fools around with girls and almost has sex and it’s never really elaborated on how he feels about it or what he thinks about it. It’s just treated as something that happened. It’s honestly just really weird how the writer just mentions all these things and never bothers to tell us how anybody reacts or feels about any of this.
The biggest issue I had with this point is the fact that spoilers ahead apparently Charlie was molested by his aunt as a child, and I can see how this might be a trigger for him, but then why is it never mentioned again? It’s only ever touched upon so briefly that it just makes it feel like it’s not even that important, which is silly.
Honestly I feel like there could have been a lot more done with this book than what was actually done with it. There was so much space to explore feelings and situations and do it in a way that made sense, rather than just a matter-of-fact way and with a character who is, honestly, so boring.
I don’t really have much more to say about this apart from the fact that I don’t think people should really waste their time reading this. It’s not terrible, story wise, but most everything else about it is just not as great as the internet said it was.
My final rating is 2/5.
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