Rating: 
Summary: Thanks for the reality, but stop crying!
Review: This book was an insight into the complex world of a high school student. It was the essence of high school--parties and football games, smoking and drugs, sex and sexuality. I believe everyone can find a level on which they can relate to Charlie's struggles or his revelations. I think in general, society forgets, or maybe ignores, that high school isn't always like an episode of "Saved By The Bell." There aren't always perfect school dances, and perfect relationships, and not everyone is popular. Charlie's life was realistic. In this aspect, I found the book to be wonderful and refreshing. There are too many books and sitcoms that portray high school idealistically. I enjoyed this slice of reality.Unfortunately, I grew weary of Charlie's immaturity; his constant emotional turmoil was also tiring. It was realistic for Charlie to be insecure and confused, but it got to be somewhat predictable. Charlie's mood swings rarely swung up to cherrfulness. His tendency to cry at the drop of a hat was even more annoying. I do commemorate his sensitivity; people could learn a lot from his compassion towards others. But his depression began to depress me! Despite these unpleasant characteristics of the book, I am glad I read it. I recommend that others read it as well. But I suggest that it be read quickly, like how you swallow your medicine. It has many excellent points and it also exposes some of high school's unsuspected truths. But Charlie's crybaby habits and emotional rampages may try your patience.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth It
Review: The Perks of Being A Wallflower is a very good book. It touched on how a "typical" teenagers life is. Whether it is to please his friends or to impress a girl, Charlie goes through it. He has a friend who is gay, and a friend that likes punk-rock music. He goes through happiness and heart-ache. This book shows the struggles of a rollercoaster ride trough a teenager life. It has ups and downs. The difference is with Charlie is that he lets the downs get to him too much. Throughout the book, Charlie has contact with drugs. Either it being accidentally or on purpose. By that, I mean, the whole brownie incident was accidental because Charlie had no idea what was going on. Then, there are times when Charlie goes to Bob and buys pot. The use of drugs destroys Charlie more. I think it is a main reason for him going insane. Also, Charlie experiences sex. This is another factor that destroys Charlie. He witnessed a girl being raped in his room as a little boy and almost ends up doing it with Sam. Also, with his sister being pregnant, it gives him a first-hand experience with love going wrong. The death of his Aunt Helen also plays a role. Death is hard to cope with, especially being as young as Charlie was when it happened. Unfortunately, Charlie blames himself for his Aunt's death. He says that since his birthday is close to Christmas, his Aunt getting him two presents is the real cause of her death.
Rating:
Summary: Are These Really the Good Old Days?
Review: Wow! It's truly amazing how a book can open a whole new world that you've been dying to reach. The Perks of Being a Wallflower puts all those feelings that could never be explained into words. It is a book of truth, realization, worry, deja vu, and reality. It's life without the candy coating. Children and teenagers are grossly underestimated. Society is so quick to simply ignore what they have to say. The Perks will awaken even the most dormant of minds to face a harsh reality. The innocence isn't there anymore; maybe it never was. The story is touching. The fact that it is only a story won't even cross your mind. There is a piece of Charlie in every one of us. Whether it be his intelligence, romanticism, naivete, or his confusion. The Perks harshly illustrates the thoughts and feelings of the new generation. If anything, this book should make us recognize that everyone needs and deserves affection. Life isn't something that just happens when we're alone. We need friends and family to make it infinite.
Rating:
Summary: Not the Typical Coming of Age Story
Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower is not the typical depiction of a boy's "coming of age". All too often, writers spit out books claiming to capture the "real" teenage experience, and all too often these books turn out to be a middle-aged writer's portrayal of those "hoodlums" who egg her house on cabbage night. What keeps The Perks of Being a Wallflower , from falling to that level is that the author, Stephen Chbosky, writes the book in a format that doesn't allow his personal biases to sway the accuracy or objective angle of the story. The book is actually what seems to be a compilation of letters written by a boy named Charlie. Although the letters don't reveal where he lives, his last name, or the identity of the recipient, they allow the reader to understand the naive, curious, and mildly insane workings of Charlie's sixteen-year-old mind. Charlie begins the novel by succinctly introducing himself to the recipient of the letters and then begins to write down his everyday experiences, his quiet ponderings and his most hated pet-peeves. He remains brutally honest as he takes the reader through every moment of his first year of high school. The reader can laugh at a year of experiences - his first girlfriend, his first smoke,and his almost unusual love for literature. However, the reader must also share the pain found inherently in the life of a teenager as well as the suicide of his close friend and a tragic revelation about his late Aunt Helen. This last trial proves to be more than Charlie can handle and he's forced to retreat from reality for a while by spending a few weeks in a hospital. Fortunately, he makes it back in just time to gracefully conclude the novel and start his sophomore year. Comparable to Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, The Perks of Being a Wallflower genuinely tells the tale of a modern adolescent. Like Holden, Charlie opens himself up to the reader and displays his deepest emotions and problems. Both Charlie and Holden seem to struggle between passion and passivity and each adamantly resist the "phony." Co-published by MTV the novel gives off a sarcastic "Daria" - like vibe which seems to balance the seriousness of the potent realism. With every page and every moment, the reader can find something both hilarious and devastating.
Rating:
Summary: Touching...
Review: This book was a great read.. really captured the spirit of the teenage narrator. Anyone who is, or has, or has ever been a teenager can surely identify with the characters in this book. You can almost taste the "adolescent angst". It is a story that makes you sit down when youre done with each chapter, and just say, ahhhh, memories! Very well written. I look forward to Chbosky's other works, as this was a pleasant surprise!
Rating: 
Summary: You should absolutely positively read this book!
Review: I enjoyed this book so much, I read it in one sitting. This book focuses on the main character, Charlie. You never know his last name, where he lives exactly, who he is writing to, but at the end, these things make the book more powerfull. Charlie is coping with his friend's death, when he meets two seniors, Patrick and Samantha, who just happen to be step-siblings. I won't ruin the book, but I will say, there is some colorful language, although nothing you haven't heard before. I would recommend this to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Going through the tunnel
Review: When I finished The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chybosky, I sat there in a stunned silence. The book was strongly powerful in a manner that diary or letter style books rarely achieve. There is usually a sense of implausibility in those types of books that Charlie's character completely negated. When trying to describe Charlie the mind suddenly reels, he's honest. Completely and utterly genuine in his perceptions and most of his actions. Charlie is also and emotional basket case that somehow manages to attract a special group of friends to him. A group of voluntary outcasts that go through the same problems teenagers face everywhere. Sex, drugs, relationships and acceptance figure heavily into everyone's lives, despite their personal beliefs on those subjects. I would like to mention Stephen's portrayal of Patrick, I was pleased to see the sbuject of homosexuality treated in such a plain manner. It was accepted as a fact and only the feelings invovled in the situations were important. I would recomment this book to a wide range of people, old or young, straight or gay, conservative or liberal. It was a pleasure to read and I enjoyed it immensely.
Rating:
Summary: Really good book
Review: This is a really good book. I know a lot of people compare it to Catcher in the Rye(which they shouldn't do, it stands on its own) but I actually liked it better. A lot of people also say that Charlie didn't act like a real high school kid. Well, gee, and how should he act then? I guess they think that all high school kids act the same.Charlies problem was that he was different. If he had been some beer guzzling jock then there wouldn't have been much of a story, somehow I don't think he would have been quite so alienated. I don't think the author was trying so much to write a story of a standered teenager as was just wanting to tell us about Charlie. I liked Charlies character a lot but I don't think he was meant to be perfect or anything so I don't get all annoyed that he was actually sensitive enough to cry a lot. Like people characters in books have both weaknesses and strengths and the author doesn't try to make Charlie into a perfect person.This is one of the best books that I have read this year.
Rating:
Summary: Charlie the Problem Solver
Review: I found this book to be interesting and pleasant to read, but not quite worth five stars. I enjoyed reading about Charlie's escapades and (sometimes) found his constant crying amusing. The Perks of Being a Wallflower deals with the everyday and not-so-everyday problems a teenager may face, such as relationships, drugs and alcohol, sex and pregnancy, love, homosexuality, life in a dysfunctional family, psychiatric problems, sexual sbuse, and death (both accidental and suicide). Since Charlie deals with all of these things in the span of about a year, he should be considered an extreme exaggeration of a teen. Most of us don't face all of these things in an entire lifetime. But, Charlie does offer insights on solutions to these problems, ofter creative ones. They make you think about your own problems in a creative way. The Perks Of Being a Wallflower is well written. Stephen Chbosky does a good job writing as a teenager, although sometimes it seems he gets slightly offtrack and makes Charlie seem younger, and other times makes him seem more wise than he should at 16. Perhaps Chbosky did so on purpose, to show the ups and downs of Charlie's mentality. He makes the characters interesting; they could be someone you know, yet none of them (except maybe Bob and Alice) are static. I think this book would mainly appeal to "generation X"or someone belonging to the "MTV generation". While I would recommend this book, I don't think oler folks would particularly enjoy it as much as teenagers or ages near that.
Rating:
Summary: The Perks of this Novel
Review: Charlie, a high school freshman is introduced to the world of sex, drugs, and secerets for the first time in this wonderful first novel by Chbosky. Charlie is a painfully passive kid who has many secrets. Through writting letters to an anonymous person, he learns a something startling about his aunt, and ultimately experiences everything.
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