Nick Pateras | The Perks of Being a Wallflower
BOOK REVIEW
The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Stephen Chbosky
An encapsulating account of the discomforts and joys of growing up, relatable to all
I recall first reading this when I was no more than fifteen or sixteen years old. Even then I grasped how touching it was, particularly at that stage in my life, and have since made an effort to read it at least once every couple of years. This is one of those rare books that has you hanging onto every word the main character espouses as he struggles to make his way through high school given his introverted and occasionally awkward demeanor. As young Charlie takes the reader through his experiences making true friends, experimenting with drinks and drugs and even sexual encounters, it is impossible to harbor anything but affection for him given his innocent naivety and genuine character.
"You can't just sit there and put everyone's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things."
Charlie is by far the book’s greatest element, with Chbosky using him as a lever to illuminate how it feels to be a spectator throughout life. He is in part the confidence-lacking teenager without the self-belief to speak up but is also quite erudite in absorbing everything he witnesses like a sponge and subsequently boxing it away in mental storage. Reading this when I was younger and still quite impressionable – or certainly relatively more than I am now at any rate – this book reinforced my desire to never be a bystander in the voyage of life. It helped me come to embrace life as a series of episodic adventures, with the challenge being to try and enjoy them all at their respective times of occurrence but also to reflect and recognize how terrific it is to possess those memories that the more passive amongst us cannot share.
-NP, August 2013