From the Bookshelf of Drop Everything And Read…

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Stephen Chbosky

Start date: February 1, 2016

Finish date: February 29, 2016

Discussion: Read

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What Members Thought

Jan 25, 2018 ❄️✨ Kat ✨❄️ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: drug-use-and-abuse, 2018, teenage, 5-stars, favorites, classics, awaiting-a-sequel, also-a-movie, lgbt, love

"We accept the love we think we deserve."

Forever waiting for a sequel to this book ugh

This book is just perfect. Absolutely perfect.
I'd been wanting to read this book for years, and I'm glad I finally picked it up.

This book is about a boy named Charlie who writes letters to someone (unknown to us) about his life as a freshman. He befriends a brother and sister, Sam and Patrick, who become the closest people to him. We learn about the friendship, love, excitement, and even the fights that their ...more

22 likes · Like · see review

Oct 29, 2014 Jennifer rated it really liked it

This book is a well-written coming of age story that includes important issues such as ,drugs,abuse, abortion, and homosexuality.

5 likes · Like · see review

Nov 13, 2015 Sherrie Miranda rated it it was amazing

This cover is the original cover & was on the book I borrowed. There is a cover put out after the movie was made which helped the book sell hundreds of thousands!
I recently read that although not near as many people watch the movie as read the book, the fact that the movie is made brings attention to the book. This is obviously true here because there are only a few reviews on Amazon on this novel with the original cover. Yet, there are more than 6,800 for the book with the new cover from the mo This cover is the original cover & was on the book I borrowed. There is a cover put out after the movie was made which helped the book sell hundreds of thousands!
I recently read that although not near as many people watch the movie as read the book, the fact that the movie is made brings attention to the book. This is obviously true here because there are only a few reviews on Amazon on this novel with the original cover. Yet, there are more than 6,800 for the book with the new cover from the movie.
I decided to share my review in both places, esp. since some parents may be trying to decide if this book is appropriate for their child.
Two young people (18-19) came to my writer's group and they were in love with this book.
The person who usually keeps our group moving along decided to pick up the book to help him understand the minds of these young adults trying to make their way in the world, as well as trying to express themselves through the art of writing.
I brought the book home and immediately fell in love with it and the character, Charlie.
In my day (the 70's), only girls or young women were called "wallflowers." There wasn't much talk about the inner world of males. The fact that the wallflower was Charlie, a male, made me very interested in the story. Charlie was shy and like many teens, self-conscious and probably too introspective (personally, I still have this problem). It makes me happy to know that there is a place a young person can go to realize they really aren't all that odd.
Charlie makes the typical teen mistakes, but since he has a very small circle of friends, one mistake (being intimate with a girl when he is in love with the girl's best friend), leads to problems with his small clique of friends.
Charlie sees a psychiatrist, which in my day, almost never happened. I am glad that this was included in the story as it helps the reader see that talking to a therapist can be helpful even when you are sure they are picking up the wrong cues and asking the wrong questions. In fact, JUST talking to almost anyone, helps us figure out the real problems and how we can deal with them.
Also, Charlie had lost a loved one, the only person who really took the time to listen and understand him. Many of us, Americans, try to forget our loved ones who are gone, but maybe that's why Charlie's parents put him in therapy. Perhaps they understood Charlie needed to talk about this loss. There is another loss in the story, but I was not clear whether the parents were aware of what that meant to Charlie.
Although there are parents who might not want their kids to read this book (Charlie does experiment with pot & there is that intimate, yet clumsy scene with the girl), however I believe it is the perfect book to help students write out and write THROUGH their pain.
I know I would have grown up a lot faster if I had a book like this and a group where I could talk freely! Luckily, I did have my younger sister! Who knows where I'd be without here!
My hope is to someday help young people write through their pain and learn that they are not alone. Although I have taught teens for more than 20 years, a regular classroom doesn't really allow for this type of sharing much of the time.
Sherrie (or Sherpeace)
Sherrie Miranda's historically based, coming of age, Adventure novel “Secrets & Lies in El Salvador” is about an American girl in war-torn El Salvador:
http://tinyurl.com/klxbt4y
Her husband made a video for her novel. He wrote the song too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P11Ch... ...more

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