Book Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

After his best friend dies, Charlie finds himself at the beginning of high school having trouble fitting in, so his English teacher asks him to participate more. At first, Charlie struggles with this suggestion because of his shy nature. However, he soon starts hanging out with Sam and Patrick, who become his best friends for the rest of high school. They will give Charlie the push he needs to live new experiences and to enjoy his high school years.

This coming-of-age novel is a good chance to start reading in English; the way it is written makes it a light read, making it enjoyable and engaging for the audience. Another thing that makes the story stand out is how relatable the characters are and how we slowly find out the real reason for Charlie to behave the way he does.

Nevertheless, there are things we found irritating. For starters, it was a bit hard to keep up with the events of the story; it feels as if Charlie was just telling us about his days without adding to a plot. Additionally, he sometimes is good to the point of being naive making his experiences frustrating to read. Finally, the ending is a bit rushed so, as readers, we could not really tie Charlie’s stories to it.

Even though we did not entirely enjoy this novel, we really liked the message behind Charlie’s experiences: although high school might seem hard, tolerance and love uncomplicate it a bit. It is a heart-warming read that will make readers feel understood.

We would recommend this book to people to people over the age of 15 given that it expands on complicated subjects such as sexual assault, violence, and suicide. We think the author’s writing was great and we would like to read more of his work, but we would also like to explore different genres such as horror and fantasy.