Given the recent minor uproar over this book, I felt as our Books editor I should give it a read and make comment on it. The day the story printed I tried to get a copy at several local bookstores and found they were sold out. (As columnist Dan Casey did as well, among, I'm sure, many others.) I finally found the last copy at Books-a-million and while there I mentioned that they should probably order more given that when you tell a person not to do something it only makes them want to do it more, and I knew we were running more print on the subject, putting it out there in the public eye. People will be curious. Upon further exploration of the book’s availability in the area I found through one of our editors that the local public libraries reported copies missing or lost. I spoke with Franklin County libraries who told me that their one copy in circulation was long overdue and likely will be listed as lost as well. My copy is now making the rounds through several of my friends and co-workers who want to know what the fuss is all about. (The book can be read for free online, and as a parent, teacher, principal, librarian, or curious citizen, I hope everyone who intends to talk about it will actually read it. ) Personally, I don’t see much to make a fuss over. As you can read in my review below, the topics in the book are reality. As the mother of two teenagers, I wouldn’t forbid them from reading it. There is nothing in the book that cannot be seen in real life, on television, on the internet, or in our own neighborhoods. I found it amazingly ironic that throughout the book, the main character's English teacher, Bill, gives him copies of extra-curricular reading material, most of which has been at one time or another on the ALA’s collected list of banned or challenged books. (Such as The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.) Go Bill! Should we all have a teacher like you to encourage reading outside of our comfort levels.
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The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Stephen Chbosky
MTV Publishing
224 pages
$14.
Published February 1, 1999
Reviewed by Heather Brush Froeschl
Charlie is the main character of "The Perks of Being a Wallflower", a 15-year-old boy, writing letters to someone, describing his life in 1991-92. It’s his first year of high school and he’s scared. His friend had killed himself in the previous spring, and Charlie reacted. The new school year is beginning now; he has anxiety attacks of a kind, and tries to stop them but can’t always do it. He makes friends with some older kids and from this safety net he observes life and starts to find out who he is. And in bits and pieces, through the letters, the reader finds out too. But does Charlie experience living or is he more like a shadow on the wall?
While growing up in the suburbs of a city, Charlie doesn’t lead a sheltered life. He is witness to explicit sex, implied sexual acts, domestic abuse, drugs and alcohol. He is also witness to emotional pain, heartbreak, confusion, deception, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He is a giving, loving friend who is agreeable and selfless, to a fault. But is he on the receiving end of being those things? He doesn’t stand up for himself; he stands up for others. He is a teenager in a time when children grow up too quickly, just five years younger than I was during that year, I can attest to that. What Charlie witnessed was an unfortunate reality, a culture that was harsher and more in-your-face than what his own parents grew up in. His letters though, explain happenings like they were sock hops and drive-in movies. He accepts his reality and shares it through his words. It is his world and he is on it, not knowing any better, like it or not.
Charlie’s brother goes away to college on a football scholarship and is the family’s hero; Charlie’s sister takes it when her boyfriend hits her, and Charlie takes it all in. His father works hard and is a good man, while his mother cooks favorite meals and packs lunches. He has one teacher, Bill, who really seems to care. Bill gives Charlie extra books to read and write essays on. For the most part the books have young protagonists who learn lessons about life; Charlie can relate. His writing improves, his analytical thinking improves, his letter writing continues, and sometimes he hides in his reading, away from the world, away from his own problems. There are tragic moments and with his reactions to them, Charlie pulls into himself so much that he needs professional help. He is hospitalized and starts seeing a psychiatrist who keeps asking Charlie about his earliest memories. There must be a reason why.
The voice of Charlie is precisely right as that of a 15 -16 year old. The letters don’t offer flowery details but let the reader see Charlie’s world as this young man would. Some letters are written in scattered, drug or alcohol influenced language, others in stone cold sober sadness. Given that his is the only perspective in the book, the reader isn’t fully aware of what his friends and family members see or understand about him and this not knowing is like Charlie’s own. His truth is revealed to the reader and himself at the same time. Chbosky is a talented writer who has taken teen angst and emotion, inner conflict and outer emotional attack and ripped the proverbial towel away to bare it all. He presents a coming of age tale with a depth of raw emotion. Adult readers will look back at their own teen years while readers Charlie’s age see themselves too. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" depicts the moment in life when we learn to be proactive rather than reactive, passionate rather than reflexive, and how someone who’d gone through trauma can still do that. And if Charlie can, we all can. This book is a gem… an uncut, unset priceless precious stone. That teacher Bill? He said it best, though he was talking about the book "The Stranger" when he said it's, "very easy to read, but very hard to read well."
"The Perks of Being a Wallflower" will not be banned from Roanoke County Schools. However, Freshman and Sophomores will need parental permission to check it out of school libraries. Three copies of the Stephen Chbosky novel will be returned to the shelves of Hidden Valley and William Byrd High Schools. I'm thinking they need more copies to go around as the demand will undoubtedly be increased after all the controversy.
