Perks of Being a Wallflower

I'm currently reading "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky. Here's what it looks like in case you were wondering.

I've already read this book but that was four or five years ago and frankly I don't remember it much. Now, they're making a movie based on it and Emma Watson, AKA Hermione Granger, is playing Sam which is really pretty exciting. So, I figured I might as well re-read and refresh my memory on the story. I'm only on page 75, which is about a third of the way through, and boy is this book good. So for those of you who haven't read this or don't know what it's about, I'm going to give you a quick description. It's a coming of age story about a boy named Charlie who just started high school. He is what's called a "wallflower" which basically means that he sorts of stays on the sidelines and observes rather than being in the action itself. So Charlie just started high school and he's having his first experiences with the real world. The book is written in letter format, Charlie is writing letters to an unknown person, and in these letters he describes events that are happening in his life as well as some of his own thoughts.

Like I said, I don't remember this book from the first time I read it and I'm thinking that's probably because it didn't really connect with me on the same level at the age of 14 as it does now. At 14, I was probably in the same period of my life that Charlie is and was too busy being a wallflower and completely naive towards with reality of the world that the book was... well just a book. Reading it now, I find myself connected with Charlie so much more and realizing that a lot of these thoughts that he's writing about are things that I've probably though of too.

One of my favorite parts is the end of the November 15, 1991 letter where Charlie is talking about photographs and glory days. He basically says that children look at their parents old photographs from when they were kids/teens and think that they their parents were a lot happier at that age than they (the kids) are now. Charlie says that he wants to tell his kids that they are just as happy as he was at that age and he hopes that they believe him. I read that and had a sad smile on my face because I realized that I do that too. When I go through something bad, something that's a normal teenage problem/challenge/insecurity, I find myself thinking that I won't want my kids to feel the same way. The weird thing is that I'm only 18 and thus not planning on having kids any time soon but yet I still think about the ways I want their life to be better than mine.

I didn't realize I was going to write this much but I think I like writing my thoughts on a book as I read it so maybe I'll be doing more of that in the future. I'll end this post with a quote from the back cover of the book.

"Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor."