A personal favorite book I’ve held onto for years would be “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky. There is something special about Chbosky’s depiction of his main character, teenager Charlie Kelmeckis, as he goes through his first year of high school while being transformed by internal battles and the need to fit in socially. The novel itself is a poetic letter to adolescence and lets it be known that, no matter what age the reader is, there is no limit to what a person can secretly carry.
One thing that has made this novel so special to me is the complexity of Charlie’s character as he deals with his own mental health. Growing up, I, along with many others in my hometown, experienced firsthand what it’s like to be told you are simply “too young” to deal with issues like that. It’s a refresher to see an author take something like mental health in adolescence and treat it so carefully instead of making a joke out of it. It’s an encouragement to young readers to open up and to take themselves seriously when they believe no one else will.
What always gets to me about this book, no matter how many times I read it, talk about it with others, or rewatch the film, is that I’ve never felt so seen. I’ve especially never felt so overwhelmed with joy knowing that other people could find themselves in this story and possibly get the same encouragement to reach out for help like I had.
In the 20th anniversary edition of the book, Charlie writes one final letter 20 years later. It’s not mentioned in the movie, which makes it so much more special. In this letter, he talks about sending these letters out into the world, and the world writing him back. For 20 years, he collected letters of people telling him how much his writing had helped them overcome their own battles. He writes the final letter as a celebration to the people who’ve overcome their struggles and those who have yet to do so.
During my first read through of this letter, I didn’t understand the final letter from the fictional standpoint of the story, but when rereading it, I realized that it was no longer Charlie speaking, but instead, it was Chbosky. These people are not stories, they are not fiction, they are real. 20 years after having released the novel to the public, the public had written back to him of how his work helped them. While some may see this as just a story, for 20 years, millions of people have read it as a lifeline.
