Perks of Being a Wallflower Book Review

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a book by Stephen Chbosky and is about a 16 year old boy called Charlie and his life growing up as a teenager in the 1990’s. I decided to read this book because I had heard good reviews and so I wanted to know what the fuss was about! When I opened the book, I found that it was in the format of letters that Charlie sends to a "friend" and in the end, we find out that this friend is a random person he heard a girl talking to another girl about. I didn't expect the book to be letters, I thought it would be narrated by Charlie himself but that is just my first thought from reading the blurb. The letters start at the beginning of high school where Charlie is scared about his first day at High School. I thought when reading the first letter that Charlie was quite a sad character as you can tell he has no one to talk to which is why he has chosen to write to his "friend". On the other hand however, some people may think that sometimes talking to someone you don't know may be more helpful. I also thought he was quite a lonely character as he has no friends and has never had a friend other than a boy called Michael but he committed suicide so Charlie has clearly been experienced to terrible things at a young age.

When reading the first letters, you get a grasp for Charlie's family and his new friends that he makes when starting school. Throughout the book, these friends show Charlie new experiences such as drugs, alcohol and sex and his thoughts and feelings about these topics. When reading the first part of the book, I thought that Charlie may be on the autistic spectrum as my brother has autism and I could see similar ways between them but I researched and found that Charlie actually had anxiety and depression. When reading more of this book I found that he was always worried about things and got depressed when no one really understood him. Towards the end of the book, we find that Charlie's Aunt...