Perks of Being a Wallflower Critic's Review

Stephen Chbosky’s novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is about Charlie, a boy who writes letters to an anonymous person explaining his troubles throughout his first year of high school. After Charlie’s friend commits suicide, Charlie must once again learn how to “participate”(74) in life. Alone and depressed, Charlie has no one to vent his problems to (besides the stranger he writes to). Until, he meets Patrick and his step-sister, Sam. They both take him under their wing and introduce him to their wild group of friends. Over the course of the school year, Charlie goes to his first party, dances in the Rocky Horror Picture Show, experiments with drugs, but most important of all, he makes new friends. But, one wrong move makes him lose all of his friends, slowly but surely Charlie gains back their trust. Sadly, Charlie’s past has a dark, disturbing secret. He had kept his secret bottled up inside him for his entire life, but Sam reawakens his tortured memories. Charlie has a serious mental breakdown and ends up in the hospital. In the final letter Charlie writes to his “acquaintance”, he comes to terms with the fact that nothing will change what his aunt did to him.

The style of the novel consists of the letters that Charlie writes to his nameless “friend”, who Charlie only vaguely describes. The author expresses the novel in this letter form to show how alone Charlie really is. That he needs to vent to someone because, after his only friend, Michael died Charlie became severely depressed. The style chosen by Chbosky also gives the reader a special connection to Charlie. Almost as if Charlie’s letters were directed towards the reader, “I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands … I need to know these people exist”(2), it seems, that by reading the book, the readers are expected to listen and understand what Charlie is going through as if they are the anonymous person. Because of the epistolary format, the text flows very well and has the ability to be more personal than going through sequences of events.

Stephen Chbosky presented Charlie at the beginning of the book as quiet, depressed, isolated, and a wallflower, which the reader can assume from the title. Though Chbosky does not directly explain what a wallflower is, the reader can infer that it means someone who is not typically social, ““He’s a wallflower.”... And the whole room nodded their head … “You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand.””(37). Chbosky developed Charlie’s character through his experiences in different situations that would be relatable for many teenagers in the ‘90’s, such as sex, drugs, bullying, and family issues, but instead of changing the way he acted, he stayed true to who he was. Chbosky did a great job of having the book present the realism of Charlie’s experiences and how the type of character development used compared to those of other coming