“[...] I am both happy and sad, and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.”
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is simply about happiness, and all its facets. It narrates the freshman year of high school of Charlie, a kid that, as the title would suggest, is a wallflower: “You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand.” So Charlie has this personality that makes him observe and analyze everything, which turns the book into a deep philosophical and psychological analysis of everyone he sees.
This makes for a book in which the story isn’t that important, but Charlie’s observations are. That’s not to say that the plot is bad or anything, it’s just that I felt that the life lessons that are brought up though it –which I’m not even going to try to reproduce – were a lot more important. He brings up great view on growing up, friendship, couples, family, art, traditions, literature, death, and most importantly, happiness. This is all possible thanks to Charlie’s particular personality, which I must admit Chbosky did a great job at creating and putting into words; Charlie’s words.
The thing that I liked the most about the book was how Charlie was so honest about how he felt about everything. How he rarely hid anything, especially from the reader. It’s like he was touching on those things that we all think, that we all have gone through, and managing to talk about them in an open, pure and sort of innocent way that somehow made them a lot more clear.
There is a big dilemma posted in this book; that of passivity vs. action. Of rationalization vs. passion. Charlie is a very gifted character and his deep analyses often make him stay out of the action that is life. In the end, it is clear that the most important thing is to find the balance, because it is only at these moments when Charlie is happy.
In the end, this was a wonderful book about life lessons. A book that I think every high school student in the world should read, for it brings a beautiful new perspective and order to this chaotic part of life.
PS: I’m kind of liking this whole start with a quote from the book business. I think I might do it from now on.
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