Reading Rendezvous: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Reading has been, and always will be, one of my top three favorite things to do, along with watching TV and writing (I wasn't kidding when I said I'm a couch potato). But I've been out of practice for a while. In case you weren't aware, high school is just one big mess of coffee, no sleep, headaches, drama, and of course, schoolwork.

But there was something special about this book, I could tell. So I carved time out of my Friday to read it. I sat in my bed around 8 o'clock at night... and I didn't put it down until I was finished at 1 AM.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, written by Stephen Chbosky, is a coming-of-age novel about Charlie, a fifteen-year-old entering his first year of high school. The book is formatted as a series of letters from Charlie to an anonymous stranger. It's about growing up, finding friends, falling in love, understanding family, experiencing the world, and confronting the past. It's about the interesting relationship between passivity and participation in life.

Charlie absolutely captured my heart. I can't quite put my finger on it, but maybe that's the point. Charlie's outlook on life is so simple, but so emotionally deep and meaningful. He's a wallflower. He looks on at the world from the sidelines, and he understands everything. But with advice from a teacher, Charlie realizes he needs to stop spending all of his life in his thoughts and to start actively participating in life. So he embarks on a journey to do just that.

Be warned. This book covers some very dark and sometimes controversial material, and Charlie's thoughts and struggles to make sense of these things are part of the reason it is so good. Many heavy, emotional topics are discussed or stressed, including drugs, alcohol, sex, mental illness, abortion, homosexuality, sexual assault, and sexual abuse. I'd like to be quite frank with anyone reading this. As a Catholic, I believe certain things and will always uphold those certain beliefs. But the point of the author was not to make the novel revolve around the issues at hand. He's simply telling Charlie's story, and how Charlie reacts and interacts to and with the world. And at the end, they drop a veiled bomb on the reader that suddenly makes you understand why Charlie is the way he is.

This book is happy, and it is sad. It's beautiful, and it is dark. It's uplifting and inspiring, and it is just as equally devastating.

I cried at one point. If you know me, you know that I cry all the time in movies. I guess visually witnessing something prompts tears more effectively for me. But in books, it takes a lot to make me cry. But this book did the trick.

I think my goal in life is to see the world as Charlie does. To understand as he does. If my brain could work like his, I think then I'd really understand how such a mixed up and messed up world could be so dang beautiful.

SUGGESTED AGE OF READER: 15-16 (for some possibly uncomfortable sexual situations and mentions of very controversial issues)
MY PERSONAL RATING: 5/5 stars

~ Lacey :)