Charlie is the misfit of his family. His older siblings, a football star who has gone on to play for Penn State and a socially popular sister, have seemingly made a success of their high school careers. Charlie has had a more difficult time. The death of his maternal aunt has had a huge impact on his life and his mental stability. Despite having to deal with the death of a close loved one and the things he’s seen as a result of having older siblings, Charlie is painfully naive. At the same time, his intuition is good. He runs into a stroke of luck when he becomes friends with Patrick and his half-sister Sam. These unlikely friendships provide Charlie with a larger, much more experienced social group. They become the framework through which he comes to terms with his past and embraces his future.
If there was one section of this book that spoke to me of my own adolescents and made me want to take Charlie in my arms for a long hug, it was the Secret Santa. Being a newbie to this group of friends, the Secret Santa meant so much to him. He took pains to select just the right things and his desire to please his friends was not necessarily returned. You feel like such a fool when something like that happens. You’re exposed as if you have played all of your cards. I know I did. One year that I spent all of my money buying gifts for each of the girls in my circle of friends. Unfortunately, if I got anything from most of the girls, it was a candy cane. The disappointment isn’t about not getting anything in return. It is just a hard way to learn that your feelings are not returned.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower contains course language, sexual content, drug use, and violence toward women, but these very adult topics are not glamorized. You see how miserable the older sister or friend is when she is mistreated. You see how drugs have paralyzed people’s lives. You see how everyone’s heart can be broken, be they hetero or homosexual. While reading this novel it’s pretty clear that the worst thing you can do is to repeatedly make the same mistakes, never learning from them or coming to terms with yourself. Just because you’ve fallen in a trap doesn’t mean you are stuck there. I understand the concerns around this novel. Read the book. It opens the door to a great deal of conversation. If only you’re ready, you can learn a lot about where your children are emotionally. If you’re open, they might just learn a lot about you, too.

I purchased this novel after it was removed from the library of William Byrd High School in Vinton, VA. I would personally like to thank disgruntled parent, Mr. John Davis, for bringing this novel to my attention. This book was for me what The Catcher in the Rye never was. I thoroughly enjoyed it and the conversation it fostered with me and some of my best friends. I can only imagine how this book might impact me if I were closer to my adolescent years. Young adult novels do not have to be benign or puritanical to be appropriate. So much is happening emotionally during high school and fiction is one of the safest environments in which to explore new feelings and ideas. I think we ought to give teenagers more credit when it comes to comprehending and responding to fiction. This is definitely one challenged book that I would challenge you to read. ( )

This book is about a teenager named Charlie, who writes letters to an unnamed acquaintance detailing the ups and downs of teenage life. He talks about his experimentation with drugs, sex and sexuality, and his deep-seated abuse issues. This was a great book for me to read personally, and it mirrors some of my past experiences. I would recommend it to any teen, it's a very powerful work.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower was even more than I expected it to be. In mind of the title, I expected the story of a boy who watches the world pass. Instead, here is Charlie, a boy trying to participate and pursue life. There were times when I could hardly believe this 15 (and later 16) year old boy was so naive. His optimism seems reasonable for someone his age, unaware (or ignoring) the harshness of life. But the thing is, as Charlie opens up in his letters, you find that he witnesses so much. He becomes more aware of the meaning of certain events and actions, as he transforms during his freshman year of high school.

Enter Sam and Patrick, somewhat outsiders who see something special in Charlie. True friends to Charlie, they do not pressure him into anything, but rather encourage him to live life and be himself. With these two, Charlie engages in intellectual conversation about literature and media, experiences drugs, sex and love, and the importance of honesty. In Charlie, they gain a compassionate friend who brings infinite moments, who understands. A teacher, Bill, also holds an important place as he inspires Charlie to reach his potential.

At first, his emotional reactions and naivete almost make him seem unreal at times. He is considered intelligent, but it is hard to grasp why by the style of his letters. But, perhaps, that is because these letters are a casual rambling of what he is experiencing. He describes his essays (for Bill) and occasionally his views in an articulate way that make it seem his scholarly writing is something separate from these letters.

Something wonderful about this book is the discovery near the end, the event the doctors have tried to untangle. An explanation for Charlie's outburst of emotions: the crying, laughter and rage. Something unexpected that allows the reader a new insight and reason to delve back into Charlie's life.

This book is an unexpected delight. Charlie allows us to witness his life, as he has chosen to live it. He could have just blended in, stayed a wallflower and possibly disappeared. But he reached out and found inspiration. ( )

Buy this. Read it. Read it again. Yes, I know it's from MTV Books, but it's good, really. Trust me.I went into this already suffering from "spoilers"... I'd gone to a reading by the author last Saturday. So while the ending wasn't a surprise, it was still very touching. Reminded me a lot of [book: The boy who could make himself disappear], but I haven't read that in almost 20 years, so it's hard to compare.During the Q&A after the reading, someone asked Steve (I shook his hand, so I can call him "Steve" now) if there's anything he'd change about the book, in hindsight. He cited two things: he'd make Charlie less sexually naive in the beginning, and he'd have him cry a whole lot less. I agree; Charlie does seem a lot younger than his 15 years, and the bouts of tears (even though Steve meant them as swift bursts rather than melodramatic crying jags) could turn off a more cynical reader.One other story from the Q&A absolutely must be told... someone asked about the origins of the phrase "we accept the love we think we deserve" which appears early in the book. Steve looked blank for a few seconds (wouldn't you, if someone asked where you came up with a sentence that you wrote ten years ago?), but then brightened and told us that that sentence got the book published. Here's how:Steve was accumulating an impressive stack of rejection letters for Wallflower. During this time, he had given the manuscript to his friend & mentor to read. This friend, Christopher, was a great guy who had a terrible track record with women. Not a bad guy, just never found the right match. Christopher had the manuscript with him on a flight to LA, and when he got to that sentence, it was like a revelation. When he landed, he went straight to see Heather, this woman he'd known and admired for a while but had never asked out. Armed with that sentence ("We accept the love we think we deserve"), he decided to take a chance. Fast forward, they're now married and have two daughters.But that's not why the book got published.The book was published because Christopher told Heather what inspired him, so then she read the book, and then called her friend Eduardo, who happened to work at MTV and was looking for first-time authors.And that's why we can read The Perks of Being a Wallflower today. Because Steve knew Christopher, and Christopher loved Heather, and Heather knew Eduardo.I think Charlie would be pleased. ( )

I really loved this book in high school - even though I didn't know what the Rocky Horror Picture Show was. ( )