The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky

Ok, everyone has those books that have been on your tbr pile so long that you've forgotten who recommended them or what they said about them, but they've taken on this sort of mythical status, like Coke did when I worked at Red Robin (which served Pepsi) and I had to spend all night telling people that there was no Coke, just Pepsi, nor no Diet Coke neither, just Diet Pepsi. And no Barqs, because that's Coke, too. And, like Coke, every time I went to the library and this book wasn't in, it moved further into the realm of the mysterious and I started to wonder if it was real at all. If it was, though, it must really be something.

Recently, I remembered that the Library of the Town in Which I Now Live doesn't charge you for inter-library loans (the Library in the Town of Which I Lived Formerly did, which made it less of a library and more of a cheap bookstore, where you had to return the books promptly or it became a slightly-more-expensive bookstore). I've been hitting the old 'request' button pretty hard these days, so welcome to the beginning of Books For Which I Have Entirely Too High Expectations. Part One.

Firstly, even though I'm now three paragraphs in and haven't even touched the book, can I point out that this man's last name begins with three consonants? And I know that, yes, even the word 'three' begins with three consonants and it's really not that amazing, so can I point out that the letter 'b' follows the 'ch' combination? This is nuts.

So. I wanted to like this book. And I realize that it's written for Young Adults, and that it's about a teenager, and that it's a dog's year since I've seen my own teens, and that parts of it are actually quite sweet, but I didn't. And I can't put my finger on why. This is going to be the shittiest review ever.

Ok, The Perks of Being a Wallflower consists of a series of letters written by an anonymous teenage boy (who gives himself and his friends pseudonyms) to an anonymous reader who he heard 'listens and understands and doesn't try to sleep with people even if they could have.' It's like a diary, but with an audience. These letters detail Charlie's first year of high school (which, I hope you all remember, sucked. I don't care how attractive or popular or athletic or smart you were, you were nervous and angsty that whole year and so glad when it was over that you almost peed yourself). Charlie's a little on the shy side (see: title), so high school ends up being even harder for him than it was for you. But he ends up making a few friends and they go through some pretty rough times, and everyone comes out *spoiler* okay in the end.

And I guess it was everything a YA novel needs to be, and it touches on all the hot issues, but it just felt...forced. Because Charlie is apparently in advanced English, and his teacher tells him at the end that he's one of the most gifted people this teacher has ever met, let alone taught. This kind of stunned me, even though this teacher has been lending Charlie meaningful books and having him write not-for-credit essays throughout the whole book, because what Chbosky seems to have forgotten is that we're reading Charlie's writing! And I know, anonymous letters ≠ formal essay, but Charlie honestly sounds like either a bizarrely intelligent nine-year-old, or a twelfth-grader in remedial English who's trying to pull out all the stops so that he can graduate. This isn't brilliant writing, even for a 16-year-old. But then he has these thoughts that are very obviously Chbosky's, because they're too old and too jaded for Charlie, who is actually kind of endearing.

So...ech. Whatever. This is always easier to do when I either hated the book, or I lurved it.

Five caterpillars.