When I was in middle school, I was reading a new book every 1 to 2 days. I can’t remember what made me pickup The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I know nobody had told me about it. The movie was out by the time, but I was unaware of it. All I know was that I was picking a new book at the store constantly, and somehow the blank yellow cover of that one caught my eye.
Describing my Experience
I think I read this book in seventh grade, and I think on that first read, I was probably too young to really understand everything about it. There are certain parts of this book that are somewhat dark and heavy, and I’m not sure how much I understood or appreciated those parts at that age. But that didn’t change how the book made me feel. As soon as I finished reading it, I passed it around to all of my friends. I knew it was a book that they needed to read, and in a few months I had made four of my friends read it. They all seemed to understand it in a similar way that I did. It meant a lot to all of us. When I think of it now, I’m not really sure what it was we understood. What did we get from this book? Whatever it was, it was real enough that we all got it. It was real enough that to this day, I have read it several times and hold it in regard as my favorite book. It was real enough to be the subject of an essay I wrote senior year of high school to win a scholarship for college. Whatever I got from this book, I will try to figure out now.
Classification and Features of My Experience
As I said before, my experience with this book is a little bit complicated. Why was I so drawn to this book? First, I realize now that I see so much of myself in Charlie. I was always a very shy and reserved kid, and I still struggle with pretty serious social anxiety. Charlie was a Freshman in high school, with no friends and a “superior” older sister. When I started high school, I was so afraid of being alone in a new place and of being compared to my brown-nosing older brother. I identified with Charlie.
Charlie eventually gets taken under the wings of two upperclassmen, Sam and Patrick. Sam and Patrick are step-siblings, and not the greatest of influences, but they’re really good friends who, in a sense, give Charlie something to live for. The two trust Charlie because he is a wallflower. As Patrick puts it,
“You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand.”
The feeling of standing in a corner alone, watching other people and understanding them, not judging them. Patrick says this after Charlie accidentally learns that Patrick is gay, and says he won’t tell anyone. I definitely didn’t know it at the time of my first read, but I identified with Patrick’s character here as well.
Finally, I think that like Charlie, I was a bit in love with Sam. She was one of the first people to take to Charlie and treat him like he wasn’t a weirdo. She was nice to him, and when they took Charlie to parties, she took care of and looked after him. I became so immersed in the way Charlie described Sam, and the way he described his feelings for Sam, that I loved her myself. He says in the book,
“I love Sam. It’s not a movie kind of love either. I just look at her sometimes, and I think she is the prettiest and nicest person in the whole world.”
This felt so real to me, so opposite of some cheesy romance where nothing like it would ever happen in the real world, that I really felt it. Also, when I did finally get around to watching the movie, Sam was played by Emma Watson, so…that’s that.
Narrative Technologies
The Perks of Being a Wallflower uses a ton of narrative technologies that I can now see led me to have the experience I did with the book. First of all, the secret disclosure happened many times, which made me feel like I was a part of the story. Because the story is told through letters that Charlie is writing, it’s almost as if most of the book was one big secret he was sharing with me. He shared with me the secret of Patrick’s sexuality, the secret of the kisses he and Patrick shared when Patrick was drunk and heartbroken, the secret of his sisters abusive relationship, and the secret of his love for Sam as well as her dreary past.
Not only did the secret disclosures allow me to identify with Charlie and become immersed in the story, but they made me identify with Patrick. Through Charlie, I learned the secret that Patrick was gay. Charlie tells the story like this:
“I heard a noise in the room where we left our coats. I opened the door, and I saw Patrick kissing Brad. It was a stolen type of kissing. They heard me in the door and turned around.”
The book takes place in the early 90’s and Brad is the a star football player, so Patrick’s sexuality and their relationship is not a topic to be discussed aloud. Patrick asks Charlie to keep it a secret. Charlie is so innocent and so loving, he doesn’t understand why love needs to be a secret, but he agrees because his friend asked him to. But because Charlie let me in on this secret, I was able to identify with Patrick. He was gay and it was a secret, and so was I. Patrick and Charlie and I understood one another.
The use of apology in this book created a story that felt so real to me that I have returned over and over again. Characters mess up, apologize and are eventually forgiven by those who care for them. When Charlie starts dating another character, Mary Elizabeth, despite loving Sam, he blows up the relationship in a truly cringeworthy moment. Even though I’m talking specifically about the book, the movie is very close to the source material, so watch this clip to gain the full understanding of this moment.
During a game of truth or dare, Charlie is dared to kiss the prettiest girl in the room. Instead of taking the moment to be romantic and kiss his girlfriend, he turns the other way and kisses Sam. I guess he just couldn’t stop himself from being honest. For a while, both girls stop talking to Charlie. But eventually, after some other major events, he is forgiven for his stupid boy mistake. Instead of holding onto the drama for dear life and stretching the conflict out for the rest of time, the story gives Charlie redemption. It feels so real and honest, just like the rest of the book does.
I have read The Perks of Being a Wallflower more times than I remember. When my mom asked me once what it was about, I didn’t know how to answer. To me it felt like it was about everything and nothing. What I have learned now is that it was about learning who I was, at all those different points in my life.
Works Cited
Chbosky, Steven. The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Gallery Books, 1999.
Movieclips. “The Perks of Being a Wallflower (7/11) Movie CLIP – Truth or Dare (2012) HD.” Youtube. 2016. https://youtu.be/4MTf0k1vqTk?si=cZgJWYjzEUUckDx6
Featured Image
Poster for The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Lionsgate Films. All Rights Reserved.
