Rating: 
Summary: It Truly Touched Me -- what can I say?
Review: In this day and age when people are so cynical and cruel, it was a pleasure to read a book from the point of view of a genuinely nice person. Charlie is a "wallflower," meaning he stands back timidly watching others live life, afraid to participate. In the course of the novel, we watch Charlie grow: make friends, go to parties, participate, even fall in love -- in other words, come out of his shell. And by the end we discover why Charlie is unable to participate in life until now; we come to understand the source of his pain. I truly loved this book; and I don't care if other people put it down! The chapters are written in letter format, and the writing is smooth and unpretentious. This is definitely the best book I've read since THE LOSERS CLUB by Richard Perez. And I discovered both books on Amazon. Anyway, if you like genuinely beautiful people, I'm sure you'll love the protagonist of this novel. You may even shed a tear for Charlie...bottom line: you'll be moved!
Rating:
Summary: Even better the second time!
Review: I first read The Perks of Being a Wallflower when I was just starting my freshman year of high school. At the time I thought the book was fascinating, exciting and above all else, I could really relate to Charlie. We all feel like wallflowers sometimes in our life and Charlie made me realize that I wasn't alone. When I picked up the book for a second time, as a senior coming towards the end of her last year of high school I was left with a somewhat different.Charlie is a wallflower. He begins his freshman year of high school very confused. He is friendless, a result of his only friend Michael, committing suicide only the year before. Most people think of him as weird because of his easy ability to cry and the fact that he's so quiet. When he meets two seniors named Sam and Patrick, everything changes. His time as a wallflower is ended and it's finally time for him to step out onto the dance floor. Sam, Patrick, and their other friends begin to integrate him into the real world by exposing him to sex, drugs, rock and role, and the Rocky Picture show. Charlie begins to learn about friendship, sexuality, while learning how to understand his complicated family. Charlie's freshman year is one of the most effective years of his life. It's strange to read Charlie's story again. I find myself a little surprised at his naivety and vulnerability, something I didn't notice when I was fourteen. It just proves that Charlie acts very much like a freshman in high school, even though he is a bit strange. If you really look at the way the book is written it even sounds a lot like a freshman in high school would sound like. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a touching book about growing up in a difficult time. I suggest reading it if you are like Charlie, a freshman. Read it if you're just a teenager. Read it if you're an adult. No matter how old you are you'll get something out of this powerful short novel. I highly recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: Very Rewarding.
Review: I've read this book about three times and each and every time I read it, It always gives me the same feeling but in a different impact. This book is such a good book. It changed my views and opinions on things. Defiantly a good book to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Overrated. The main character is unbelievable
Review: So many things about the lead character (Charlie) don't ring true that after a while it's hard to take the author seriously. Charlie is supposed to be a 14 or 15 year old teen, circa the early 1990s. But his tastes (in poetry, in music, etc.) seem to come straight from a 30-something of that era. Chobsky is clearly trying to give hints and suggestions to his teen audience about what's cool -- through the voice of Charlie. But come on. Charlie makes mix tapes of Smiths AND Procul Harem? Gives gifts like "The Mayor of Castro Street" for Xmas to his friends? Laser Floyd shows? The final episode of M*A*S*H? For a social misfit, he's got taste. I'm sorry, but for a purported school misfit, Charlie has an acumen for culture way beyond his years. After a few chapters of this, in sometimes heavy bathos, the book really feels forced. Sort of a compendium of "what you should know and read if you're a teen". Chobsky even includes handy lists of all the songs on the mix tapes so you can do it yourself. I didn't think it deserved the swallowing praise I see in all these other reviews. Wallflower is no Catcher in the Rye...
Rating: 
Summary: Sadness is Sadness
Review: "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" is one of the best books I have ever read. A confessional of a boy named Charlie who does not really fit in. The story covers his freshman year of high school. Charlie is a likable character, with wisdom beyond his age, who seems to teeter on the knife-edge of depression. Charlie struggles with the normal hurdles of coming of age: crushes, first dates, discovering sex, drug experimentation, loosing oneself in music, parental strife, dealing with death, and making genuine friends. He finds solace in two senior friends and a teacher who sees his intuition and intellect. Charlie does fall into depression toward the end but finds himself again. I was left with a warm feeling knowing Charlie would be okay in the end. This book is "Catcher in the Rye" with a more upbeat ending. A novel that leaves the reader with the ideal that everyone matters. If your life isn't going how you planned, it's okay to feel bad about it, even if your problems pale in comparison to the problems of others. Problems are problems and sadness is sadness and we make it through in the end. I highly recommend this book to everyone.
Rating:
Summary: READ THIS BOOK!
Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower, written by Stephen Chbosky, is a coming of age story that portrays the teenage life of a boy named Charlie, who is just entering High School. He battles with finding new friends, trying drugs, fitting in, and overall, just finding himself in the world. "I went to the library and checked out a book because I was getting scared . . . The book said that sometimes people take LSD, and they don't really get out of it . . . I started breathing fast in the library" (Chbosky 101). Charlie experimented with LSD, and realized that just because his friends did something, that didn't mean he had to do it too. I highly recommend this book. It's a page turner that has a lot going for it. There is a very clear plot. "I just wish that god or my parents or Sam or my sister or someone would just tell me what's wrong with me" (Chbosky 139). Charlie just wants to know who he is. He's tired of trying to find out on his own, and he's ready to just have someone tell him. Charlie deals with a lot in this coming of age novel. He is the source of the major conflict in the story. "Patrick did call me, but all he said was that Craig got really angry at Sam about me, and I should keep staying away until things got clear" (Chbosky 130). All of Charlie's friends got mad at him when he kissed his true love, Sam, instead of his own girlfriend, in a game of "Truth or Dare". Everyone turned against him, but this was just the beginning. Many things happen to Charlie, that by the end of the story, you feel as though you know him yourself. Read this book! No matter your age or gender, it's one that everyone can enjoy. It's the coming of age story of a boy who is lost, and it portrays a wonderful new perspective if a teenage boy. Adults will learn, or be reminded of what it's actually like to be young, and kids will just understand completely. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, written by Stephen Chbosky, is a well-written, well-rounded novel that I highly recommend!
Rating: 
Summary: Read any book mentioned in this book instead.
Review: Where to begin... I think what happened here is that Chbosky wrote a great book. And then MTV stepped in (yes, this is a "MTV Books" book) and mandated that this be more marketable to high school kids. The main problem I had with this book was a matter of believablity. The main character's (charlie) best friend commits suicide before he starts high school, and for whatever, any other friends are gone now too. So you have a kid, going into high school, and he has no friends. Somehow, he manages to meet two people, become best friends with them, and then in turn become best friends with thier friends. No high school on earth works like that. Another key point that I found very insulting and disturbing is when Charlie's sister has an abortion, and there is absolutely no physical or mental recourse. She sleeps for 5 hours in the back of a car, goes home, eats dinner, and life is normal again. Thats not how it works. Any woman that has had an abortion will tell you that you are mentally a mess afterwards. This portrayal is about 1,000 times worse when you consider that the target audience here is high school kids. Also, the fact that Charlie cries on nearly every page, gets particularly annoying after the first 20 times. I now understand why emo kids love this book. As my title states: Don't buy this book. Instead, read one of the books mentioned within this book.
Rating:
Summary: the perks of being a wallflower
Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a great book to read for high school kids. I felt when I read it that I could relate a lot to Charlie the main character and books that allow you to feel what the character goes through are fun to read. The whole story is really about Charlie growing up, experiencing every thing that a 15 year old would experience. Charlie was a wallflower and it was good for me to see how other people who are totally opposite from me. But really the reason I liked this book is because I write just like Charlie, the way he uses his words and the way he writes. He writes the book as a journal using stream of consciousness. It was great to see how alike we write and that's why I liked this book so much.
Rating:
Summary: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky is a very real story about the struggles teenagers have to deal with. Charlie is a wallflower or outcast who is really searching for some sort of truth throughout the entire book. Weather you are a teenager or an adult I think everyone can relate to some sort of aspect that is presented. All of his thoughts and emotions are written in a letterform so we as readers get to experience everything with him, mostly for the first time. Charlie never says who the letters are too or why he writes them, he just writes.
Although this book takes place in the early 90's, I could relate to the majority and of the feelings, emotions, and events that take place. Entering high school as a freshman unsure and unaware of who you are is frightening and we hear all of Charlie's thoughts. In the beginning of the book Charlie's best and only friend commits suicide and that really tarnishes his ability to trust people. Later he meets a few upperclassmen that introduce him to drugs, sex, and music-, all of which change his life.
Charlie is trying to figure out who he really is, with an athletic older brother who the family worships and a sister who "sneaks around" with her abusive boyfriend he already has a reputation for the world. However, he does not want to just be a younger brother of the star athletic or the pregnant sister, he wants to be Charlie. Though he isn't quite sure, who or what Charlie is, he starts to figure that out.
Charlie falls in love with a girl who does not love him back but when she does finally start to love him, Charlie finds himself overwhelmed with emotion and cannot love her. He is in a constant struggle over what he really wants. Charlie finds himself caught up with drugs and becomes a frequent drug user during a part of the book, wandering the streets, always searching. When his sister finds out the truth about his drug habit and confronts him about her own secret (being pregnant) Charlie finds an emotional connection with a person he though he would never have. When Charlie walks in on the star quarterback for their high school kissing his male friend, he begins to question his own sexuality. Again, he is searching for truth. All of the incidents- happening to an ordinary freshmen teenage boy.
I would suggest this first to teenagers. Drugs, alcohol, rape, sexuality, teen- pregnancy are all issues that teenagers today have to deal with. I would also suggest this to teenagers because his emotions are so true of what high school brings you- happiness, joy, success and also sad, depressed, let down, and confused. Charlie constantly battles these emotions. I would suggest this book to adults to read with an open mind and try to remember what the strong emotions felt during high school and some of those may even linger on to present day.
I loved this book and could not put it down. I felt myself wanting to write back to Charlie because he is such a genuine guy who is just trying to get through high school. Some may criticize the fact that many of Charlie's likes in music and television are much older then his age (The Smiths, M*A*S*H) but I wouldn't criticize, instead look at the fact that he is a misfit so liking things that most people of his age don't like or know about would be so fit perfectly for him. Other people may say that the issues he goes through are not real and teenagers do not have to deal with that. I am a teenager myself and can honestly say I know at least one person who has had to directly deal with drugs, alcohol, rape, sexuality or teen-pregnancy.
I rate The Perks of Being a Wallflower a 10/10 and highly recommend it everyone.
Rating:
Summary: A Unforgetable Novel!
Review: PERKS is such an outstanding novel. After THE LOSERS' CLUB by Richard Perez (which another reviewer recommended), it's the best novel I've read in at least a year! It transcends what is typical and expected for books about awkward teenagers and reaches deeper into the meaning of self discovery. As I read the book, I was finding myself more intrigued by Charlie, the narrator, because he reminds me so much of myself. He's the type of kid that seems so ordinary but has such an extraordinary mind. Charlie is so likeable and anybody can relate to him. He has this unique and rare thought process that is simplistic yet reaches high levels of intrigue and complexity. All the events, both happy and sad, that occur are things that happen to everyday people. Readers can empathize with Charlie and understand Chbosky's tone about the struggles of being a teenager. This is one of the most readable books I've come across and I think teenagers would thoroughly enjoy it, so I highly recommend it.
|
