Spoiler Alert!
When I first read The Perks of Being a
Wallflower in 8th grade I was immediately captured by its text.
I had just finished Go Ask Alice. I
soon learned that reading diary format was my favorite in literature, it felt
real to me and I was more able to lose myself in the writings.
When I read it for the first time my age was appropriate for the age of the main
character Charlie. He was a freshman in high school. I would not necessarily
say that the book’s content was appropriate for an 8th grader, but
for a mature student, like myself, it is an incredible read.
The books starts out like Holden Caulfield’s writing in The Catcher in the Rye, another one of my favorite books, the character Charlie is looking for a friend to confide in so he starts this diary
of his freshman year in high school, the reader learns there is some mystery to
the character. We the readers learn in the second page that his best friend
committed suicide. Charlie has just come back from an institution and he is
getting ready for his first day of high school.
He has no friends and he can’t even count on his sister to sit with him at lunch.
He makes a friend on his first day of school, his English teacher. His teacher
gives him some highly recognizable books to read during the school year.
While he was attending a school football game, he met Patrick and Sam his soon to be
best friends who are also seniors. They take him under their wing and show him
the other side of high school, parties, sex, drugs, rock’ n’ roll, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
He dates Mary Elizabeth, Sam’s friend, but Charlie always pined for Sam. The
friends had a falling out when Charlie was asked to ‘kiss the prettiest girl in
the room’ during Truth or Dare; instead of kissing his girlfriend Mary
Elizabeth, he kisses Sam. The group of friends doesn’t talk to Charlie for a
while.
Patrick’s lover was the quarterback of the football team also a closet gay. Patrick and
Brad got into a fight during lunch; it was basically the football team against
Patrick. Charlie stepped in, blacked out, but beat the whole team unknowingly.
The group of friends and Charlie became friends again after the incident.
When it was time for the seniors to graduate Charlie said goodbye to his best
friends. He finally earned Sam’s love in return, he also reveled to Sam
something that has always troubled him. Thought the book Charlie always wrote
about his favorite aunt Helen. He wrote about the night she died, he blamed
himself, and referred to things she did.
After Charlie said goodbye to his friends he had a panic and went to his dark place
again. He ended up back in an institution. The thing that had been troubling
him for so many years had been reveled to him and his parents. He ends the
diary writing that tomorrow is his sophomore year and that all is well.
The movie takes all the important and best scenes from the book and weaves it
together to form the movie. It was written and directed by Stephen Chbosky. I
was most excited to find out that the movie kept the parts about Charlie’s aunt
Helen. I thought the content of molestation would be too sensitive for some
viewers so much that the moviemakers would have left those parts out, but they
didn’t. The scenes depicted in the movie were exactly like how they were
depicted in the book. This is probably because they same person wrote and
directed the story. I don’t think the movie leaves the same impression that the
reader has during the book. It is one of those stories that a person just has
to read not watch in order to grasp the full story.
The only disconnection from the book to movie that I thought was the fact that the
character talked about cassette tapes and Olive Garden. The book was set in the
80s-90s era; they didn’t talk about Olive Garden. It is unclear what time
period the movie was set in because the mentioned Olive Garden and had cassette
tapes. Those two ideas are not both in the same era.
I would recommend both the film and movie. The movie follows the book very well,
but the book captures your soul. However, they both make you feel infinite.
Danielle D.
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