A brief introduction to the characters

So far, the author has introduced us to Charlie, who is an innocent, introverted teenager that loves to read and to spend time with his friends, Sam and Patrick. Sam is a gorgeous girl whose charming personality has made Charlie to fall in love with her, Patrick, her brother, is an amenable, immature, and naughty young man who helps Charlie navigate his high school years. Along with them, we will follow Brad, Patrick’s secret boyfriend, and Mary Elizabeth who is quite quirky and not really close to Charlie yet.

The story begins when Charlie tells his pen pal about a traumatic event that made him change the way he acts now that he is in high school: his best friend committed suicide in middle school and, although he and his classmates received the help of a counselor, he has not been able to figure out how to behave in social settings.

During his freshman year in high school, he starts actually trying to make friends and to finally fit in; he soon gets involved in parties, tries drugs and alcohol, and has wet dreams about the girl he likes; in his letters we find the highlights of each day he lives.

Up to this point of the story, he has told his pen pal things he once witnessed such as an act of sexual abuse a girl from school went through, about the parties he goes to with his new friends, and some anecdotes about his experiences with his family dynamics and the holidays; these last ones including missing his brother and his aunt Hellen, who he mentions to be dead, but this is something that has not been clarified yet.