Friday, April 4, 2014

Stephen Chbosky's 'Perks of Being a Wallflower'- Midway Review


This book is weird.

I like it.

 While the story isn’t written in a format that I’m usually comfortable with, it doesn’t throw off the direction of the story. While everything is summarized by Charlie, they aren’t always important, and that’s almost a good thing. When he mentions tiny things like going to a burger place with Sam and Charlie, you can see how much he actually cares about them and how they really do calm him down. By seeing how much he cares about people, you grow to care about them to. However, you happen to see that Charlie doesn’t hate people. Everyone but the boy who hit his sister, of course, but he is really a kind soul.

 He’s so trouble and misled and occasionally innocent that I sometimes tend to put him into a little child’s voice and its only until he mentions that he eats weed brownies or took LSD and had so many hallucinations that he practically passed out in the snow at a party that you remember he’s a grown boy. You don’t really think much of his strange thoughts until the random mentions of the psychiatrist and a therapist are brought up. He mentions going to the doctor after seemingly blacking out after finding out about his Aunt Helen’s death. His family is always very gentle with him (except for his sister, she’s an idiotic brat. I’d have more respect for her if she wasn’t such a dsjfaksldjf to Charlie all the time.)

 It surprises me that a kid that’s only around a year and a half older than me takes part in these strange events, and it leads me to wonder what the hell is going on with the other kids in my school that I don’t know about. Parties with weed brownies and alcohol, casually taking LSD and having his friends educate him about LSD trips. Well, I guess Sam and Charlie ARE seniors, along with the rest of his friends. I’m kind of surprised his parents aren’t worried about him, are they really that naïve? Then again, I don’t think my mother would mind if I hung out with some seniors all the time. I mean, as long as they know I’m responsible and stuff.

 Charlie says a lot of interesting quotes for a fifteen year old, I’ll admit. They’re definitely relatable though, and I can tell that they’re mostly brewed from his extremely mature mind. One that I’ve definitely grown to appreciate was “I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that” (Chbosky 94). With depression or any types of stress and anxiety, anyone would just want to fail to exist at some point, I being one of them. For time to just stop for a bit and give you a break, and let you relax and put your pieces together before you’re forced back in. Charlie really is relatable, while maybe not with all aspects, it can relate from his mental struggles, to his personal struggles, to his social struggles. He’s quite a strange character, and I think that’s why I like him so much.

 I think we might be inching towards a climax of the book. Charlie’s mental stability seems to be decreasing, and I can’t tell if that’s from the random drugs that he does or just from his natural stability. Considering the fact that’s he’s restricting himself to even come to tears to anything except for his Aunt Helen. I don’t think that’ll be quite healthy for him, and I worry for him. However, I know his friends will be there to support him along the way.

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