The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”- The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky

The critically acclaimed debut novel from Stephen Chbosky, Perks follows observant “wallflower” Charlie as he charts a course through the strange world between adolescence and adulthood. First dates, family drama, and new friends. Sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Devastating loss, young love, and life on the fringes. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie must learn to navigate those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.

If you are at all curious as to how modern YA contemporary, or even just YA contemporary in general came to be, I would point you towards two books in particular: Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak and this one. In both, you will find the characters, and more specifically, the subject content whose influence is so obviously felt in so many YA contemporary books, especially the Very Important ones. Some people include other books like John Green's Looking for Alaska, published around the same time as the above two novels, or The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger's most famous work (though not, in my humble opinion at least, his best). I haven't seen any novels that explicitly drew influence from Looking for Alaska, though maybe if I read it I would see more obvious similarities between contemporary today and that book, and while I definitely realize The Catcher in the Rye's influence on the genre today, I think of that book as more of the grandfather of YA, kind of like what The Velvet Underground was for the punk movement. The point of this is that if you want to understand YA contemporary and why it is the way it is, if you read this book the genre will make a lot of sense to you.

Yes, this was my first time reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I think I should have read it back to back with Speak or 13 Reasons Why (another one of those books that had a huge influence on the YA world, but I wouldn't consider it to be a definitive book the same way the above two are) in like 2015. Probably would have absolutely loved it back then. Now, I don't know. There was something lacking in this book, that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Development, maybe. None of the issues, or the characters really, felt fully developed so I had a hard time caring about any of them. Even Charlie, the main character. The book probably would have benefited more from a regular first person POV instead of having the letters because maybe then we might get better character development. I felt a disconnect from almost everyone in the book, even Charlie. Which is a shame, because I could have really loved Charlie. He was the kind of male hero I adore, and with better writing, I would love him as much as I loved Ed Kennedy from I Am the Messenger or Aaron Rowe from The Dead I Know. Maybe Chbosky should move to Australia.

Probably a lot of this book has to do with the writing style. Charlie sounded a little young for 14, and it was very beige: "This happened. And then this happened. It made me feel this." etc. I have nothing against beige prose or sentence fragments, considering that one of my favorite authors makes use of both all the time, though to a far less choppy effect. I understand why Chbosky chose this style, but it just grated on me at the beginning. The writing seemed to improve as the book went on, but I wasn't sure whether it was genuine improvement or I just got used to the style. There was also lots of name dropping of famous books or various bands and movies, but, again, it felt just like name dropping. Apart from a few surface-level mentions about how they made Charlie feel, I didn't get the feeling that Charlie was that influenced by them. It was more to show Charlie's relationship with his teacher than anything else, and establish him as someone who has those tastes in books and movies. I'm a firm believer that, if you need to name drop a certain artist or book, it should tell you something about that character's personality or inner thoughts and feelings. I was also displeased with the amount of telling and not showing, which makes sense because Charlie is 14 and "writing" this book through his letters, but we did also get a lot of unnecessary telling of Charlie's personality traits. We didn't need the fact he was a wallflower spelled out to us, it's evident not only in the title but also in his interactions with the characters.

I wonder now if the something holding me back was the overabundance of issues. This book was clearly the forefather of the issue book, because Chbosky threw in everything. Homosexuality, drug use, domestic violence, teen pregnancy, sexual abuse, etc. Whenever I surfaced from this book, I just felt exhausted. Not even emotionally attached, just exhausted. Not as tired as I feel after reading an Ellen Hopkins book, but it was the same kind of feeling. At several points, I just wanted this very short book to be over with. It was a shame, because I honestly think Chbosky had some good and unique points about things like cliques that you just don't see in YA contemporary nowadays. One of my favorite moments was when Patrick was talking to Charlie and he mentioned that (and I'm paraphrasing) the only difference between their clique and the football players is what clothes they wear and why they wear it. I really liked that. I also really enjoyed Chbosky's portrayal of family dynamics. The people you'd expect to be completely villainized (his dad, his football-playing older brother, his grandfather) are shown in a new and refreshing light. I wish when it came to family dynamics more YA contemporaries took this lead, instead of going for the emotionally detached parents of books like Speak. But overall, even those things I liked just felt dull.

This was the most 90s book I've ever read. Very grunge, very 10 Things I Hate About You, minus Heath Ledger (sadly). I could see why my friends active in the DIY scene really liked this book. But it just wasn't really for me, anymore at least. Sure, it was really interesting to read the book that had such a strong influence in YA, the book that's considered The Catcher in the Rye of this generation, but I just wasn't feeling it. Probably because I didn't actually like The Catcher in the Rye all that much. Still an interesting read nonetheless. Recommended if you haven't read it yet or if you want to start reading YA contemporary. Again, read it alongside Speak as an introduction to the genre.

6.5-7 out of 10