Book review: Stephen Chbosky "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"

Incredibly honest epistolary novel, based on author's personal life and people that he has met, takes a popular "how to survive a high school" type of a story to the next level. Usually such genre books have one plot line, obvious good and evil characters as well as an inspiring moral at the end. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" offers a more vivid storyline with unexpected twists, most importantly, allows the reader to be the judge.

Stephen Chbosky never planned to write this novel. In fact, at the time he was writing a completely different genre book but then he wrote the line "I guess that's just one of the perks of being a wallflower". It would be fair to say that this line changed Stephen Chbosky's life. He realised that there is a boy somewhere who is a wallflower, lost in his own thoughts, struggling to connect with others and having a lot to say but keeping quiet. Chobsky decided to change that, he gave a voice to that boy. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" was published in 1999 and immediately gained success. However, after the book landed on school libraries shelves it also received some criticism because of the not suitable for children material that was in it. Therefore, "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" is being frequently compared to "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger.