Summary:THIS BOOK FUCKING SUCKED!
Background: So recently I felt like I was reading too much science fiction. I also felt like I needed to find ways to meet new people outside of work. In perhaps the worst possible move I felt like I could kill two birds with one stone by JOINING A BOOK CLUB! In doing so, I learned two valuable lessons: I read science fiction because it's clever and interesting, and I don't meet new people because people are awful. But in order to learn these fundamental truths about life I had to suffer through Stephen Chbosky's
The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
A cursory view at the Amazon page seemed promising: 4.5 star rating, 1,200 reviews, and overall very positive text. There were some warning signs; in hindsight, the "MTV Books" imprint being the biggest. But everyone seemed to like this book, and I was trying to go outside my comfort zone a bit(ironically, a theme of the book!) so I figured: what the hell.
Not as Bad as it Seems: The book is an epistolary novel written by a high school freshman named Charlie to an anonymous, genderless "friend." Presumably, the friend may be YOU, dear reader. Charlie is the titular wallflower of the novel and the book covers his first year of high school as he learns to come out of his shell and "participate" in life. "Charlie"'s text has a really simple, small-vocab style that I suppose is supposed to emphasize his high schoolness. He is a really smart and honest, just really shy and awkward with people. He has a habit of saying short simple sentences that do a magic job of capturing the attention of everyone around him and wondering what untold depths lie beneath his quiet exterior. In this way, he is kind of like the Magical Negro reimagined as a suburban white kid.
For the first thirty pages or so, I was really rolling my eyes. It seemed a bit trite and silly. But as I started to get further in, I found myself quite liking the characters and being involved against my will. There were some very lovely written bits and passages that pushed all the right nostalgia buttons. The sections of the story dealing with Charlie's first love, in particular, reminded me of (the infinitely better)
Blankets, by Craig Thompson. I'm no Ninfag or high school apologist, but I do have a soft spot in my heart for those idealized halcyon days that may have never actually been. Can you be nostalgic for a past you didn't have? But I digress.
Things Fall Apart: But then the book just started getting silly. The further you get into the book, and the more the vignettes are piled on, the harder it is to suspend disbelief. In the span of nine months, Charlie lives through every after-school special cliche in the book. He gets drunk, he gets high, he takes LSD. He has his first sexual experience (both hetero and homo). He meets a teacher probably played by Robin Williams who encourages him to Carpe Diem or something. He deals with the death of a loved one. He loses friends and regains them. He deals with homophobia, teen pregancy, and child abuse of all kinds. &c &c. Once you strip away the lovely writing and the interesting filter of putting everything through Charlie's perspective, you realize that he is just a pinball being bounced from stupid situation to stupid situation. The actual plot is so dumb and contrived you'll think it's a Takahashi-Sakaguchi tag-team joint.
The book is also obsessed with bringing up other "lonely teenager" books as points of reference; Catcher in the Rye, This Side of Paradise, To Kill a Mockingbird, Hamlet, etc. It seems cute at first, but by the end you realize that the author actually considers himself part of this canon. He also uses and reuses the lovely phrases he comes up with, so what moves you the first time triggers your gag reflex the fifth. It feels like he's trying too hard to craft catchphrases for a generation, c.f. "I feel infinite."
Jesus Christ NO NO NO:(Here there be spoilers, but since the book sucks you should definitely just read them.)
spoiler (click to show/hide)
But the moment I just absolutely fucking lost it with the book was about 10 pages from the end, when Charlie suddenly has an epiphany that he was sexually abused by his (conveniently deceased) aunt when he was a child, and That's Why He's All Messed Up. Child molestation is like rape--it's not just a card you can play when you want to kick your story up a notch. The moment you bring sexual abuse into your story, your story isn't about a high school kid anymore. It's about a molested kid. Any universality the story may have had is completely swept away by the aunt in his pants. It adds NOTHING and explains NOTHING, it's like the author just felt like he needed to explain why Charlie was an anti-social wallflower who has trouble relating to people. Apparently, "he's a smart teenager" wasn't enough--which is funny, cause it sure was for me.
In conclusion, fuck this book and none of you should ever read it. If someone tells you it is good, they are lying and you should treat their future book suggestions like they just praised Spider-Man 3.
THE END
