I am on page 55 and questioning if I want to continue.
Can someone who enjoyed this book please explain what they particularly liked about it, I can try to look from your perspective and start liking it? What makes Charlie reflective (in the back cover it says so about him)? I see that he is a boy with mature and deep emotions but he doesn’t seem like he understands where his emotions come from, he is just naturally an ethic person. He seems too good to be true, too naive, doesn’t seem like a complex character with levels to unfold.
Maybe I am too emotionally detached to like this book.
by Tall_Meal_2732
20 Comments
Can I ask: are you a teen? Many “deep” teen books like this simply don’t resonate once you’re older.
Not everything is for everyone 🤷🏼♂️. Try the movie, and if that resonates, treat the book as a companion. The author also directed the film, so they really are counterparts.
It’s my all time favorite in large part because of when I read it. If I read it for the first time at 23 instead of 15, I’d probably feel the same.
If you are not into it, no need to read it. I am not going to write a middle school/high school essay about what makes him a likable or tolerable character. But i will answer like this:
Perks is a coming of age tale about a young man lost in the shadow of his brother and sister, who has no real sense of self, and is fairly effected by the death of two people close to him; His Aunt and a classmate.
Charlie is a wall flower, in his own view of the world, being defined as a person who sits on the side lines and watches. He is an observer. The book is about his growth away from being a wall flower and into understanding his wants, needs, and self. As a ‘wall flower’ or ‘chameleon’, many kids, esp ones who experience trauma, are made to feel more like observers than participants.
The book isn’t about his ethics. The book isn’t about him being likable. Even if you draw no attachment to him, the book is more about how the people around him pull Charlie from his shell.
It is a story about longing, about wanting to fit in, about competing for attention, about developing in the crucible of high school. Yet, most of all, it is a book. It is meant to be entertaining and engaging, and if it fails in those two aspects you need to find another book.
A similar book (in genera and also published by MTV books (i believe)) is Hairstyles of the Damned.
As a kid who had a similar suburban life as Charlie, who fell in with a crowd of outcasts, drug users, and want to be manic pixie girls, i can relate to Charlie. I loved the book as a youth, and i found the movie to be a fairly good adaptation.
M(19) here. No you should not continue this book. You should immediately throw it in the trash because that is where it belongs. I hate, hate, hate this book to the point where my pulse went up 30 BPM when I saw your post. The book sucks big time. Actually the worst book I’ve ever read. I only finished it because it’s so short and so easy to read but hated every word of it. Just Google pobaw sucks reddit. You’ll find plenty of examples for why it’s super overrated.
It’s… an interesting historical document.
I found it interesting to read that book and think about what being a teenager was like in the ’90s.
I found it interesting to think about what adults of Stephen Chbosky’s generation *thought* being a teenager was like.
I found it interesting that the book was a big hit, and I found it interesting to think about what the young-adult fiction market was like when the book came out.
I found all this interesting without ever really liking the book, and without exactly hating it either.
It struck me that I was kind of like the main character as a kid (though I didn’t go through all the worst things he went through).
It was interesting to think about what the book got right about kids like me and what it got wrong.
It was interesting to think about how some of the adults in my life had been of the same generation as the author, and what *they* got right about me and what *they* got wrong.
I’ll say this much for it: it’s a YA book, so it’ll be a quick read. It also has a couple of important twists near the end, that put some of the story into context. You might as well finish reading it and form your own opinion.
I haven’t read it yet because I know I won’t like it because of the hype and I already disrespected THUG because of that.
Charlie is a naturally empathetic person. He’s seen a lot of ways that people can hurt each other and how people live and deal with that pain. It’s similar to Holden Caulfield.
I could relate to Charlie because I, too, was a wallflower at the age I read the novel.
I so badly wanted my own Sam and Patrick but never found them, so I was stuck just observing.
Honestly, I just felt like to a point, I really understood Charlie. You really get inside his psyche and how he sees the world, and I really liked exploring the themes of the novel.
I loved the way it was written, it felt like I was uncovering a story that was already in the past that left me wondering if the characters turned out alright. I don’t know, I can’t quite explain what clicked about it that’s specific to why I love it.
I was a teenager when it was released and I’d never read anything like it, it definitely made an impression on me. But if I read it now I probably wouldn’t feel the same.
I read it and was so annoyed 😂 my friend had been trying to get me to read it since we were 11, I read it at 18 and was so mad after everyone bigging it up for so long, especially with the twist at the end that just seemed pointless to me, more shock jock than anything
It was my favorite book as a teen that age and I related to Charlie on pretty much every level, that book saved my life, but like any coming of age take it has nothing to resonate with as an adult. I highly suggest any teenager read that book, and Running With Scissors, and a ton of other coming of age books other than Catcher in The Rye because Holden Caulfield is the worst, but if you didn’t read those books at that age then I would say skip them, you’re not going to get much from them unless you’re trying to relate to your kids or something like that.
Well, I was a teenager in the 90’s, so it spoke to me on that level. I even went to Rocky Horror Picture Show screenings for fun back then, so, yeah. I was basically one of those kids.
Beyond that, the book resonated with me because Charlie had a lot of trauma the way I did, and he was just beginning to process it. I think it speaks to a lot of people who have experienced childhood trauma and remember what it was like to “see” it for the first time, if that makes sense. You think you’re “normal” because you don’t know anything else, then you realize you’re not, and you have to start figuring things out.
But if it’s not for you, that’s perfectly valid. No book is for everyone.
If you’re on page 55, I can’t really explain what I like about it without ruining it. I related a lot to Charlie especially when it comes to something you find out near the end of the book.
This book was everything to me at 15. I think if I read it for the first time as an adult (as I am assuming you are), I don’t think it would resonate so much anymore.
I read it this year (I’m 34). I don’t think it was all that deep or life changing like I might have when I was a teen. It did remind me of how high school feels like the most important time of your life. I have a daughter that will be a teen in a few years so it was nice to remember what it’s like then.
I’ve seen it everywhere from bookstores to music and thrift stores and I’ve considered reading it since it’s up my alleyway (The Virgin Suicides, Lolita, Norwegian Wood etc) but after skimming through it I didn’t really like it I don’t know if it’s the writing or the format or something else. I’m still somewhat considering getting it and actually reading it but eh?
I had to read it for a class my freshman year of college (so 18, 19) and while I was at first excited to read it because I was like “I’m definitely a wallflower/socially awkward. Maybe I can relate to the main character”, it ended up just making me mad. Charlie as a character feels like his naivety is amped up to such an extreme level, that he doesn’t seem to have a sense of a right or wrong way to act (while this may be true of some wallflowers, there are a lot like myself who do know, and I was constantly saying in my mind as I was reading, “What the heck are you doing? Don’t do that!”.
Plus, while Charlie has a child-like innocence to him, it feels like it makes him too much of a child and felt kind of condescending. I myself am a kid at heart and am sensitive but it felt like Charlie would cry at the slightest thing. Then lastly, it has him go through so much stuff during a single school year, that while it might be true for one or two of these things to happen to a teen or in the proximity of a teen, having all of that happen at once feels way too unrealistic and kind of soap-operaish/melodramatic: suicide, drug and alcohol use, sexual abuse, physical abusive relationships, teenage pregnancy, same sex relationships, and homophobia, so I couldn’t really relate to it at all.
Do I wish I had friends like Patrick and Sam? Yes, definitely, and I think that’s the part of the book that worked the best for me, but everything else, no. Overall, great concept, but not very good execution or at least not executed in a way that I could personally relate to it.
Like Catcher, you either love it, hate it, or just feel completely confused when you read it.
It was my first time hugging a book (and while blinking tears) after reading it.
I read it when I was about 13 or 14 in the early 2000s, having a weird life experience where most of my friends were older but I didn’t have any siblings of my own, so I ended up inheriting all these influences from a slightly older time period that I didn’t grow up with and my peers didn’t know anything about. I had friends telling me what Smiths album was the best and such, and giving me books to read that were inspiring them presently in their late teens/early 20s because I was a little overthink-y and they probably figured I could use some less vapid culture than TRL and razor scooters.
So to say I identified with Charlie’s character would be an understatement.
That being said, if I had to experience it for the first time as an adult, I’d probably wonder how this kid had such deep introspection. I could see how it would read like an older person reimagining their younger self through their adult perspectives and not all that believable.