The Perks of Being Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Buy the book:

Amazon / TBD

Author's:

Twitter / Goodreads

Book summary:

"Charlie is a freshman.

And while he's not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his year yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it.

Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mix tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But he can't stay on the sidelines forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor."

"This moment will just be another story someday."

     My sister and I don't usually like same books. She loved the movie, read the book and told me that it was a blast. I try to stay away from the books she recommends me, but I didn't want to watch the movie without reading book first. And... I got hooked from the first line.I think I filled six pages in my "quote-diary".

     Charlie is this weird kid just starting high school. He doesn't fit in and has all kinds of stuff going on in his head. Everything we found out about him is trough his letters to some anonymous friend from his school. I know that some people didn't like Charlie very much for this or that, but there are lot of kids like him out there. I'm guessing that my teaching experience started to influence on the way I understand books I read, especially if main character is teenager. And yes, I liked his teacher, Mr. Anderson. I hope that I could influence some of my kids that way. So far they are just grunting when I give them extra homework.

    When I read parts about mix tapes, I thought my face would crack from all the smiling. Now, everyone makes playlists for their mp3 players - you pick the song and click on "add to the list". Done. Back then, making mix tape was a whole process. It wasn't that easy. I had tons of them - we made them for each other as birthday gifts, for parties, heartbreak mix tapes, girl power mix tapes, getting ready for Saturday night mix tapes... And The Smiths!!!!:D My favorite is This Charming Man, but I like Asleep too.

     Other thing I really liked is ending. It is left "open", we don't really know if everything is going to be okay in Charlie's life and it's not all "unicorns and rainbows" happily ever after. His friends moved on and he is on his own now, better than before, but there are still lot of things to work on.

     I will finish this post with one of my favorites quotes from the book:

 "It's much easier to not know things sometimes. Things change and friends leave. And life doesn't stop for anybody. I wanted to laugh. Or maybe get mad. Or maybe shrug at how strange everybody was, especially me. I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and than make the choice to share it with other people. You can't just sit their and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things. I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm going to be who I really am. And I'm going to figure out what that is. And we could all sit around and wonder and feel bad about each other and blame a lot of people for what they did or didn't do or what they didn't know. I don't know. I guess there could always be someone to blame. It's just different. Maybe it's good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think that the only perspective is to really be there. Because it's okay to feel things. I was really there. And that was enough to make me feel infinite. I feel infinite."

    
 Until next time,