I am incredibly surprised at myself for not liking this book. I had heard nothing but good things about this so-called modern Catcher In The Rye (a favourite of mine) and was really looking forward to reading it, despite not knowing much about the actual story. Despite being able to appreciate why it is viewed as a modern classic and a well loved story by some, I just can't seem to enjoy it at all.
The Perks of Bring A Wallflower is a coming-of-age story told from the perspective of a young boy, Charlie, writing letters to an anonymous person he has never met. He tells stories about starting his freshman year of high school, making new friends, navigating family drama and generally watching life from the sidelines. He is intelligent and introspective, but cripplingly shy and awkward, and makes extroverted friends who help to bring him out of his shell. The topics covered in the book are very wide including rape, abortion, child molestation, drug use, domestic abuse and homophobia. Perks has entered modern culture in a way few other books have managed and is much loved by a lot of people.
I have to admit, Perks is very quotable and contains some wonderful pieces of poetry and prose, but I was expecting much more than that. I found the main character, Charlie, highly unrelatable and difficult to figure out. Honestly I spent most of the book waiting for mention of him dealing with autism or aspergers syndrome, but apparently he is the way he is for other reasons. The voice was interesting, easy to read and quite beautifully written, but it just wasn't enough to carry the failings of the narrator for me. Charlie is a 'wallflower' who stands on the sidelines and sees all, but the problem is that he doesn't seem to really understand most of it. Since the story is entirely in first person, the reader is left to either make up their own minds about things or be outright told them by other characters who are constantly explaining things to the narrator. I thought the character of Sam in particular suffered with this - at times it seemed like her only purpose in the story was to help Charlie struggle through things and explain situations to him that he didn't understand. While I understand that this was to show how much Charlie had trouble with relating to others, it didn't really feel like that whilst reading it - it felt like lazy writing.
Another thing I struggled with was the ending. Now, if you haven't read it and don't want to be spoiled, skip this paragraph. I had no idea that the 'big reveal' at the end that is supposed to explain why Charlie has so many issues was that he had been abused by a beloved auntie as a child and blocked out the memories until he was older. If the ending had been different I honestly think I would be giving this review at least 3.5/5, but I can't forgive that ending. I felt cheap reading it, as if we are supposed to just read about this revelation and blame everything that is wrong with our narrator on this abuse. I was not left feeling sad or hopeful or anything at all for Charlie, just cheated out of a decent explanation and still waiting for more. I felt this way about a lot of the issues in the book actually, including the suicide of Charlie's so-called best friend Micheal (which happens chronologically just before the beginning of the story), which is mentioned maybe once or twice and never fully discussed. It sometimes feels like issues such as this are there just for the sake of including them, because it certainly didn't add anything to the plot. It felt weird and unrealistic, and in a book claiming to be about the realities of teenage life, that was the last straw for me.
There is however, a few reasons that I am giving this book two stars instead of none, and most of those are contained within one character: Patrick. He was wonderful with an interesting story that seems to be a lot more developed than most of the other 'issues' and probably the only character within the book who I am left wondering about. I also found it interesting that Charlie's brother and sister are never given names, which added a nice touch of ambiguity to the narrative and lets be honest, anything that throws in a bit of Rocky Horror Picture Show is never going to be entirely bad. And, as mentioned above, I did find some of the writing very beautiful. It's a very quotable text and some moments are relatable (much as I hate to admit it, the 'infinite' scene struck home with me), so I do think Chbosky hits the nail on the head in a few places. I may try and read it again at some point, as I've been told that it improves on second reading, but i'm not convinced at the moment.
Overall, The Perks of Being A Wallflower is not, in my opinion, the Catcher in the Rye of our generation. It is a well written but incredibly flawed book that isn't bad, but isn't a modern classic. Unless there are very, very deeply hidden depths to this novel that have gone completely over my head, I am going to say that although I can entirely see why you might very much enjoy this book, for me it was okay at best and I will probably not be reading it again.
I would give this book 2 stars out of 5
- Natalie
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