Wallflowers Listen

It would have been great for me AND my graduating high school class to have been introduced to Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, written just ten years ago, before we stepped foot into our new school of four years. Most of us had no clue what we would be up against. I , however, was a peer mediator, which put me right center in the business of all the gossip and problems that faced my classmates. Charlie, the main character, uses his spare time by writing letters to a person unknown about all the things he notices and encounters as he is the 'wallflower' on the wall. The setting is one where most of my peers could relate: home, school, friend's house, party, and popular hang out, while with others, it could have been a lesson learned before experiencing what could happen. The read for me was a huge eye-opener of the non-fiction tales which are kept hidden behind closed doors. Since the story is told i the first person point of view, with Charlie always speaking, a touch of sincerity is added to the the emotions expressed.

This novel is all fact, just with different character names, and the opinion of Charlie. I was in high school just a little over six years ago. The things discussed in The Perks of Being a Wallflower have not disappeared. I prove it is a fact by listening to the news ad hearing about tragedies that are affecting high school students due to the actions of a teenager who feel like a 'wallflower'. Often times these tragedies are closely connected to feelings that don't reflect what Charlie says, "If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it too." A world of confusion is hard to grasp and hold on to. Charlie writes in one of his letters, "So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be." It is the trying to figure out those feelings that lead many into destruction.

Scary.

The novel for me is a constant reminder for me to always try to help someone who just wants to be heard. I was never the 'wallflower' but the words Charlie spoke made me feel like I was there, and I so desperately wanted to help him. We never know if Charlie is writing to someone he knows, if he is just writing a daily diary, or even if he mails the letters off. Because many times these stories are never heard, teenagers act out on their emotion, making the worst decision possible, "I would die for you, but I wouldn't live for you." Chbosky put these words into text and now all that is left to be done is for them to be read.