Goodreads Review of The Perks of Being A Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky


Dear Friend,

I wasn’t sure who to write this book review for, but I heard someone talking in the cafeteria about you and that you liked books, and although you don’t know me and I don’t really know you, except for what I heard in the cafeteria, I thought you might like to hear about this book anyway. It’s called The Perks of Being A Wallflower. I read somewhere that the author had great ‘voice’ and since I’m always interested in improving my writing ‘voice’ this sounded like a book I should read.
I know you are supposed to give out stars or thumbs up or things like that when doing a review, but I don’t really feel like that applies so I’m going to skip that part. I hope this doesn’t ruin your enjoyment of this review. Even when I do think about giving this book stars, I always want to give it fractional stars, like four and a half instead of five or just four. Some reviews do that and others don’t, and since I’m not sure which kind of review this is, I’m going to just leave all that up to someone else.
I think the author of this book did a lot of drugs, or does a lot of drugs. He likes to drop in names of books and songs, and if you don’t know anything about them, it makes you feel a little left out, or ignorant. I don’t think this is on purpose, but that’s what happens anyway. I also think he smokes and drinks, probably all while he’s writing. It’s on his mind a lot. Some of the best writers in history did this, so I guess that’s ok. I don’t really do any of them, so I wonder if I can be a great writer. People say, “There’s a first time for everything.” I’ve heard that before, so I can hope that can apply to me. The first great, sober writer. I’d like it if that could be possible.
I thought the last third of this book got slow. It started to feel infinite, but not in the standing-in-the-back-of-a-truck-in-a-tunnel kind of way. There was more drama in the first and second half than there was in the third, and it was a little bit of a letdown. It finished in a satisfying way, and I was glad to have read it when it was done, and I think that’s probably the best thing you can say about a book anyway. You may not agree.
There is a good twist at the end of this book, but by the time it comes around, things have slowed down so much, it doesn’t have the impact I think it could have. Also, I suspect the way a certain relationship ended was designed to allow for a sequel, which cheapens the whole thing a little in my opinion. I hope this last thought doesn’t discourage you from reading the book. It really was quite good.

Love Always,

Shawnie


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