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The perks of being a Wallflower
Aug. 12th, 2001 10:03 amI picked up this book last night by Stephen Chbosky; its on the summer reading lists for a lot of the local High Schools but was recently removed from the Newton list after a parent read a bit of it and found passages about gay sex, masturbation and bestiality.
Its been described as a Modern Day "The Catcher in the Rye" or "A Separate Peace" - both books that I loved when I was assigned to read them in HS over the summer. I read 74 pages of this one to B out loud last night and then we had a discussion about differences in HS's, the classic books of curriculum (or lack thereof in Everett's case) and the reasons for reading/learning.
I think I like "The perks of being a wallflower" because Charlie's group of friends is similar to the one that I used to run with. And his parent's are similar to mine . . . a Mom that stays quiet, watches TV and reads magazines all the time and a Dad that is supportive of the family, outgoing sometimes but mostly focused on going to work (that's how he was back then).
Mix tapes come up in the book a lot (you remember the days of mix tapes?). One was described as such:
"I spent all night working on it, and I hope Patrick likes it as much as I do. Especially the second side. I hope its the kind of second side that he can listen to whenever he drives alone and feel like he belongs to something whenever he's sad. I hope it can be that for him. I had an amazing feeling when I finally held the tape in my hand. I thought to myself that in the palm of my hand, there was this one tape that had all of these memories and feelings and great joy and sadness. Right there in the palm of my hand. And I thought about how many people have loved those songs. And how many people got through a lot of bad times because of those songs. And how many people enjoyed good times with those songs. And how much those songs really mean. I think it would be great to have written one of those songs. I bet if I wrote one of them, I would be very proud. I hope the people who wrote those songs are happy. I hope that they feel its enough. I really do because they've made me happy. And I'm only one person".
So if you like coming-of-age stories and reminiscing about "glory-days" (as the protagonist describes) and you're able to find it, pick it up!
Its been described as a Modern Day "The Catcher in the Rye" or "A Separate Peace" - both books that I loved when I was assigned to read them in HS over the summer. I read 74 pages of this one to B out loud last night and then we had a discussion about differences in HS's, the classic books of curriculum (or lack thereof in Everett's case) and the reasons for reading/learning.
I think I like "The perks of being a wallflower" because Charlie's group of friends is similar to the one that I used to run with. And his parent's are similar to mine . . . a Mom that stays quiet, watches TV and reads magazines all the time and a Dad that is supportive of the family, outgoing sometimes but mostly focused on going to work (that's how he was back then).
Mix tapes come up in the book a lot (you remember the days of mix tapes?). One was described as such:
"I spent all night working on it, and I hope Patrick likes it as much as I do. Especially the second side. I hope its the kind of second side that he can listen to whenever he drives alone and feel like he belongs to something whenever he's sad. I hope it can be that for him. I had an amazing feeling when I finally held the tape in my hand. I thought to myself that in the palm of my hand, there was this one tape that had all of these memories and feelings and great joy and sadness. Right there in the palm of my hand. And I thought about how many people have loved those songs. And how many people got through a lot of bad times because of those songs. And how many people enjoyed good times with those songs. And how much those songs really mean. I think it would be great to have written one of those songs. I bet if I wrote one of them, I would be very proud. I hope the people who wrote those songs are happy. I hope that they feel its enough. I really do because they've made me happy. And I'm only one person".
So if you like coming-of-age stories and reminiscing about "glory-days" (as the protagonist describes) and you're able to find it, pick it up!
