The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

 

*No-spoiler Alert*

An unconventional epistolary novel, depicting the vicissitudes of life from adolescence to adulthood.

It is a story about the 15-year old Charlie, a freshman at high-school. A stand-offish Charlie, addresses each letter to his anonymous friend using the greeting " Dear Friend" and wraps up with " Love Always".

The recent deaths of his bosom-friend and beloved Aunt, leaves him traumatized. 

Skittish about entering high-school, Charlie finds peace and acceptance from English teacher Bill and befriends Patrick.

Charlie is deeply enamored by Patrick's stepsister Sam. 

Instead of finding reasons to come out of his shell, he becomes more standoffish due to complications developing among family and friends. He keeps reading "Catcher in the Rye" ( again personally I am not at all a fan of this novel, and found it too depressing) to find solace.

I started losing interest in the second half of the novel, till I was introduced to the turbulent episode between Charlie's sister and her abusive boyfriend.

Towards the end, after the sister's episode, we get to know about Charlie's brother's Patrick's and Brad's homosexual relationship.

The imminence of losing school friends soon, and rejecting the provocative moves of Sam ( reason disclosed towards the end), Charlie enters a catatonic state, when he is driven to a mental hospital by his parents. A big revelation is made then, which clarifies the audience about the reason for his mental sickness(no spoilers included). From there on, Charlie puts an end to writing letters.

As the story progresses, I would have expected it to pick up a positive tenor, but it plummets downhill aggressively. I couldn't gather any perks of being a wallflower whatsoever, which forces me to give 2.5 stars. The immense popularity the book acquired , reveals the populace's herd mentality on Vanity and vexation.

Definitely not my kind-of-book.