Charlie is the protagonist of this book. Charlie is starting his first year of high school, and because he is scared, he starts writing to an anonymous friend. Charlie is not his real name, he changes his name and everyone else’s because he doesn’t want that friend to know who they are. He writes a series of letters to his friend, enclosing his life in his first year of high school.
Charlie is a troubled boy in some ways. He never had many friends, and one of his best friends committed suicide. His Aunt Helen was his “favorite person in the whole world”. But, she was also troubled when she was younger. She was molested by someone in her family, but her parents didn’t believe her, and kept inviting the man over. Eventually Aunt Helen grew up
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I think it describes extremely realistically what a teenager goes through as a high school freshman. I found the writing style to be very unique and creative and it held my interest through to the end. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is also very relatable. I think many people -especially teenagers- can relate to the situations and feelings that people have in the book.
There isn’t a very intense plot, which I found to be a refreshing change. Instead, through Charlie’s letters, I could relate to the characters and go into their minds and feel what they felt. Although it was set in the 1990’s, most of the themes from the book about high school are still very valid today. It also showed me what life could be like in high school later on, which is both exciting and terrifying.
I think Chbosky makes a great statement in the book that you should “be alive”, and you should “participate” and not just sit on the sidelines and watch others do it. Especially in high school, which people say are the best years of your life, you have to be alive and participate and not be a bystander. By being a bystander, you won’t experience life to the fullest and will only remember those high-school years as a vague haze rather than as glorious technicolor