THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER - BOOK REVIEW - SPOILER CONTENT

This is one of the books I wanted to read for quite a long time, and finally, I’ve been able to get one copy and start reading it.

Before starting it, I have to admit that I had no idea what that book was about. The only thing I knew was that there was a film, starring Emma Watson, of which I didn’t even watch the trailer. So, to be honest with you, I was a little afraid of spending my money in a book I wasn’t sure I was going to like, as my usual types of books have nothing to do with this one.

 So, one afternoon I decided to actually open it and start reading it.

Saying that I was overwhelmed about it is saying too little. At first I did not quite understand what the story was about, but after reading a few pages you get an idea of how the main character, Charlie, is like, and of what you will be reading.

This book is written in first person, and that means that the narrator is the main character as well (let us call him Charlie from now on). Charlie is sending letters to a “friend” of whom we know nothing about. In those letters, he talks to the stranger, as if that person was his personal diary, about his routine and how he feels and how he sees everything. He is a wallflower, you see, and he sees and hears everything from a different point of view a normal person does. In the letters, he exposes his worries, his experiences and his opinions, which he always saves to himself. Charlie is a really quiet boy, and in the book they describe him as a shoulder to cry, not a helping hand. He is more the kind of boy who listens and would do anything for a friend, no matter what he thinks is right or wrong. And he’ll do everything a friend tells him to, independently if it is what he wants or not.

He is starting his freshman year at high school with no friends at all. On the first day he connects with his English teacher, and from then on, they develop a really special bond. He’s always been unable to make friends, but one day at a football game (American football), he got to meet two seniors, Sam and Patrick, who took him to a party afterwards and from then on, they started to hang out and help Charlie making friends.

Charlie develops feelings for Sam, but does nothing about it, as he thinks it’s better to just stay at the threshold of things, like always.

Throughout the book we can see and feel a development of the character. How he starts from being a lonely boy who just hangs around in the threshold of everything and how he finishes making his opinion count, thanks to their friends and all the support he’s got from them and, maybe in part, his family.

There is also a little story around the main one, of which they clarify everything at the end of the book, that tries to explain why Charlie is acting the way he is, and why he has the problems he has. I will only say that that story concerns his beloved Aunt Helen.

Teenage love, troubles, worries, parties, mess-ups and conflicts are all over the book. It is very entertained and really fun reading it. I couldn’t stop and, in fact, I finished it in two days.

230 pages full of words, over a million words full of meaning. This book is totally worth reading and I highly recommend it to anyone who doesn’t know what to read or do with their free time.

Hope you liked it. Lots of love,

Fashion Ariol