Book Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

This is a beautifully written book with simple but poignant language and a terrifically observant main character. It is written as a series of letters to an anonymous friend and goes off on so many wonderful tangents. The story is a little lacking but I feel that way about so many of these ‘coming of age’ stories. Perhaps it is reflective of the actual experience of teenagers – not that much happens but it feels like the most dramatic time in their lives regardless.

The author does rely on mentioning a lot of books and songs instead of leaning on the strength of his own writing, which I think detracts from the book overall, but these are minor quibbles.

My major quibble is with the ending. I didn’t like it because it felt like it was dumped on the reader with no preparation. It almost felt like the ending to a different book.

But I would still definitely recommend this to older teenagers.

4 stars

*First published on Goodreads 4 February 2013