Stephanie read and liked Kim's review of The Perks of Being a Wallflower:

"There are certain nuggets… certain lines or sentiments that I stockpile when I read.. I find them on pieces of paper towels or on the back of notebooks, I’ve stopped writing them on my arms since it grosses my husband out…. but they are still t...more There are certain nuggets… certain lines or sentiments that I stockpile when I read.. I find them on pieces of paper towels or on the back of notebooks, I’ve stopped writing them on my arms since it grosses my husband out…. but they are still there, those little lines of self therapy that I rely on to further my mental wellness and to avoid those damn co-pays.

So, I’m reading yet another YA book about a teen with issues that seem so prevalent these days, I mean, really, what teen doesn’t have issues, right? It’s amazing how saturated the market has become. I remember Judy Blume and SE Hinton and CS Lewis but not this flood of writers of the MTV generation (yes, this is a MTV book, I checked.)

This is Charlie’s story, told in the first person through letters to some anonymous spiritual judge. Charlie is a freshman, an awkward one, hence the ‘wallflower’ title. He speaks and writes differently from other 15 year olds, it was his voice that made me love him and made me infuriated with him. How can someone be so naïve? He doesn’t know what masturbation or what wet dreams are? Seriously? At 15?

Then… ‘Wallflower’---it’s always been one of those plain insults, someone who is too shy to participate (and Charlie does indeed attempt to ‘participate’), someone who is too bland to be worthy of noticing. In my most down of times, I admit to feeling like a wallflower. I’d blend into the scene, not meet people in the eye. I became the one that everyone unburdened themselves on. I was a great ‘listener’. Yay. So, nugget #1

“Charlie, don’t you get it? I can’t feel that. It’s sweet and everything, but it’s like you’re not even there sometimes. It’s great that you can listen and be a shoulder to someone, but what about when someone doesn’t need a shoulder? What if they need the arms or something like that? You can’t just sit there and put everybody’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can’t. You have to do things.”

Where was this when I was 15? Hell, I probably wouldn’t have listened anyway.

What I connected to most within this book was the relationship that Charlie had with his English teacher. I guess at a different age it would be Charlie and his friends or Charlie and his Crush or Charlie and his family, but at this point in my life, it’s Charlie and Bill. Bill sees how unique Charlie is and assigns him extra reading: To Kill a Mockingbird, This Side of Paradise, A Separate Peace, Peter Pan, Walden, The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, The Stranger, Hamlet, On the Road, The Fountainhead.

What amazing books to be able to expose someone to! I can even forgive The Fountainhead as I can remember pouring through it at fifteen. And when he gives Charlie this book, he also gives him my nugget #2.

“When he gave me the book, Bill said, “Be skeptical about this one. It’s a great book. But try to be a filter, not a sponge.”

Is that how we break it out then? Filters and sponges? I thought about this, probably more than I thought about the storyline (which was okay, by the way) and I went back and filtered.

As I grow older I find myself clinging to different characters—I guess that this is a sign of growth, or I hope that it is. I thing about this teacher that was so impressed with Charlie and I hope that at some point in my life, with my own children, I can introduce them to these authors. What a rush.

I can’t pretend to understand what Charlie has gone through. It hurts. I want to take him into my arms, be his shoulder, protect him from remembering evil, but then I have to remember that this is just a book. That Charlie isn’t real. ----Be a filter, not a sponge.
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Stephanie read and liked malic's review of The Perks of Being a Wallflower:

"i couldn't stop reading this book. but i can't decide if it's kinda brilliant or too issue-y. you know, just teen suicide, drinking, drug use, family disfunctions, homosexuality, desire, sex, domestic violence, date rape, incest, death, popularity,...more i couldn't stop reading this book. but i can't decide if it's kinda brilliant or too issue-y. you know, just teen suicide, drinking, drug use, family disfunctions, homosexuality, desire, sex, domestic violence, date rape, incest, death, popularity, social relations, etc etc. i mean i do love a good coming of age story/degrassi high episode and this one has a social justice twist...

the book is structured through the main character writing anonymous letters to an unknown person, which i loved and hated. i loved it cause it's so something i have done, pour my heart out to a stranger because i think they will understand and care, but i hated it cause it's like probably the person who received the letters didn't really give a shit, the catch being that i'm reading the letters and i cared....

despite the issues, there are some brilliant heartbreaking observations:

"Downtown. Lights on buildings and everything that makes you wonder. And in that moment, I swear we were infinite."

"I walked over to the hill where we used to go and sled. There were a lot of little kids there. I watched them flying. Doing jumps and having races. And I thought that all those little kids are going to grow up someday. And all of those little kids are going to do the things that we do. And they will all kiss someone someday. But for now, sledding is enough. I think it would be great if sledding were always enough, but it isn't."


"we accept the love we think we deserve."

"I walk around the school hallways and look at the people. I look at the teachers and wonder why they're here. If they like their jobs. Or us. And I wonder how smart they were when they were fifteen. Not in a mean way. In a curious way. It's like looking at all the students and wondering who's had their heart broken that day, and how they are able to cope with having three quizzes and a book report due on top of that. Or wondering who did the heart breaking. And wondering why."

also, it's about a boy who cries a lot, which i loved.
and this boy has mad crushes.
and he's a wallflower.

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Stephanie read and liked D_Davis Davis's review of Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) (Paperback):

"Book/Film essay...

What is free will? If we were forced to, or programmed to have free will, would it really be “free”? What are memories? Are memories proof of our existence, our reality, or are they merely tokens of places, people, s...more Book/Film essay...

What is free will? If we were forced to, or programmed to have free will, would it really be “free”? What are memories? Are memories proof of our existence, our reality, or are they merely tokens of places, people, situations and things that may or may not have existed. Is an android (a synthetic human) programmed to have free will and to have memories any less human than the real thing? After all, aren’t we all to some extent created humanoids with “pre-programmed” brains and inner workings all for the purpose of exploring our own free will and memories? These are the questions asked in Philip K. Dick's remarkable book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

...

The world envisioned in the book is dark and bleak, but not without it’s hopes and dreams. Through the technological undertakings of mankind and large corporations, the planet has become over-populated, leaving no room for expansion or, for that matter, nature itself. Animals, well real ones anyway, are extinct, and now companies like the Tyrell Corp. manufacture fake “replicants” for consumers to purchase. Along with the animals, they also create androids. The Nexus-6 model Android is completely life-like, and even has memories and free will programmed into them. They are so life-like that even they sometimes forget, or never even knew, that they are\were not human.

But what is a “true human”? What do we consider the criteria that makes a human being a human being? A soul? Can we prove a soul exists? What about memories? Can we prove that they really happened? Might we be an android programmed to think and believe that we are the real thing? Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter hired to “retire” (not “kill”), begins to ask himself these very questions. If one has the belief that he is real, well then does that not make him real? If one is programmed with the expected behaviors of society, programmed to obey and follow the norms laid down by society, then really one has just skipped the learning phase of life and already knows what is to be expected. Does this make said person any less human? And what of the values or goals? We think as humans that what separates us from the rest of the world, both natural and technological, is our ability to discern right from wrong, good from bad, desirable and undesirable behavior. But what if a machine was programmed or “taught” to learn this system of agreements - then what would separate us from the rest of the world?

If in a libertarian world, free will is the most important aspect, who would decide what constitutes free will? In D.A.D.O.E.S it is the Corporations who now play god. Through the rise of their power given to them by an unaware, uneducated society, the Corporations have dictated what is to be expected, what the beliefs should be and ultimately what is true or real. They are both conservative and socialistic in their approach. They feel that they must create and lay down the system of agreements for society, so much so that they create perfectly synthetic humans, and believe that through their actions, mankind will ultimately benefit.

Rick Deckard ultimately begins to question his own reality. Is anything real? Is his very life any more valid than that of an android? Is his seemingly “free will” really that “free” when it can be so easily reproduced by technology? These questions may never be answered. And so like much of his work, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ultimately asks more questions than it answers, but such is the nature of well written science fiction – to use the future and the fantastic to ask questions about present day situations.

full review @ www.genrebusters.com(less) "