Taking place over the course of one school year and into the summer beyond, the reader gets to see Charlie make two, cool, hip, older friends Sam and Patrick, connect with a teacher who sees his passion for books and talent for writing, Bill, and get his first girlfriend, Mary Elizabeth and experience the usual collection of awkward horror and heartache that comes along with being a teenager.
I struggled with this book. There were many things that I loved about it- the early 90s setting, the musical references (lots of references to The Smiths... which seems appropriate enough given how depressing this book could get in parts) and the books! I loved that Charlie spent the year reading through books that his English teacher kept giving him- I loved watching him react and think about the different books (On The Road, To Kill A Mockingbird and The Fountainhead to name a few) and I could readily identify with Charlie's awkwardness- especially with the ladies.
But there's something not quite right about Charlie and the further you get into the book, the more you realize that this isn't just your usual teenager awkwardness/coming of age angst. I caught myself wondering if Charlie had some form of autism at several points during the book. And then I wondered if he could be gay (or just generally conflicted about his sexual identity) but it gets annoying towards the end. Stephen Chbosky* (the author) teases the reader with several possibilities while building the tension and putting poor Charlie's mental state through quite the wringer and it bothered me because by that point in the book, I was rooting for something good to happen to Charlie. And if not good, then I was at least hoping he could find a little corner of his high school where he could be content.
The payoff though put all of Charlie's awkwardness into context and the end of the book does find him in a much better, healthier place than when he started out.
And having written all of that, I still find myself somewhat conflicted about this book. I think had I read this in high school, I would have identified with the characters in this book far, far, more than I did with Holden Caulfield in Catcher In The Rye (my feelings towards Catcher have mellowed with age-- back in high school I thought Holden was a whiny little rich boy pissant... having re-read the book not that long ago, I found that a lot of what he said about people being phony rang surprisingly true.) The awkwardness and social anxiety- not to mention the general struggle to figure out just what the hell is going on when you're in high school is something I instantly recognized in this book.
Having said all that, I think Perks got a little dark for me towards the end. Charlie's mental state drops beyond the usual teenaged angst and struggles into areas that you don't expect. The brilliance of the book, I suppose is that Chobsky makes you care about these characters enough to be genuinely worried about Charlie and rooting for him to get better but I think the power of the message about the awkward melancholy of being teenager gets lost a little in Charlie's struggle for stability- and that bothered me a little.
Overall: A tightly written, readable book, The Perks of Being A Wallflower is a beautiful, touching, melancholy story that gets lost in its own melancholy a little too much. That said, I still found it to be an enjoyable read. I'd give it a solid *** out of ****
*Interestingly enough, Chbosky went on to write the screenplay and direct the film adaptation of this book. Haven't yet given the movie a viewing.
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