The Perks of Being a Wallflower

• Main
• Trivia
• YMMV
• Wikipedia
• All Subpages
• Create New

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Written by:	Stephen Chbosky
Central Theme:
Synopsis:
First published:	February 1, 1999

"And in that moment, I swear we were infinite." —The book's most famous quote.

The first novel by Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower was first published in 1999.

The narrator, 16-year-old Charlie, is just starting high school as a freshman, having been held back a couple of years for reasons of being in the hospital due to being emotionally damaged. The novel primarily concerns Charlie's adventures in the '91-'92 school year, and is written as an Epistolary Novel, a collection of letters Charlie is writing to a friend-of-a-friend whom he was told would be a good listener. Charlie, who doesn't excel at much except reading, seems to be off to a bad start before two seniors, step-siblings Patrick and Sam, take him under their wing. And so begins Charlie's adventures into school, literature, dating, Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll, teen pregnancy, suicide^{[please verify]} and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The book was well-received and essentially the literary version of a Killer App for its publisher, the newly-launched MTV Books. It has drawn comparisons to The Catcher in The Rye, primarily for being a pull-no-punches look at high school and for having a First-Person Narrator. It also placed 6th on 2008's List Of Most Frequently Banned Books, for similar reasons.

A movie, written, directed, and produced by Chbosky, was released in 2012. Logan Lerman and Emma Watson play Charlie and Sam respectively, and Mae Whitman plays Mary Elizabeth.

Chbosky wrote Imaginary Friend as a follow-up to this novel; it was published in 2019.

Tropes used in The Perks of Being a Wallflower include:

• Ambiguous Disorder: Charlie is just said to be "emotionally disturbed".
• Bittersweet Ending
• Brutal Honesty: Charlie picks the worst possible time to invoke this when asked in a Truth or Dare game to "kiss the prettiest girl". He kisses Sam.
• California Doubling: Averted. Most of the locations for the movie, right down to the theater where they see The Rocky Horror Picture Show, are filmed in their original locations in Pittsburgh.
• Camp Gay: Patrick, mostly when contrasted with Brad.
• Cool Teacher: Charlie's English teacher Bill.
• A Date with Rosie Palms: Charlie learns about what masturbation is at one point. This leads to an incredibly narmful passage in which he describes it in awe opening one of his letters.
• Double Standard Rape (Female on Male): averted by the nightmares Charlie suffers after being sexually abused.
• Dysfunction Junction
• Epistolary Novel: Charlie is writing these letters to someone. Evidently he just started sending them without any prior correspondence.
• First Girl Wins
• First Kiss: Sam to Charlie. She specifies that even though she has a boyfriend and sees Charlie strictly as a friend, she want his first kiss to be with someone he loves (see Rape as Backstory below).
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Averted by Charlie's sister.
• Invisible to Gaydar: Brad.
• Jerk Jock: Brad has shades of this, and pretty much evolves into a full-fledged one when his dad catches him and Patrick and beats the shit out of him.
• A Man Is Not a Virgin: Averted. Charlie is.
• May-December Romance: While Charlie was held back a couple grades and should have been a junior, he's still a freshman dating a senior (Mary Elizabeth).
• No Name Given: Charlie's sister never has a name mentioned out loud, nor do his parents or brother. And for that matter, there's hints that "Charlie" is a pen name adopted for reasons of anonymity (Charlie's sister has been named "Candace" in the film, probably for reasons of practicality).
• One Steve Limit: Averted. Charlie's English teacher, Bill, shares a name with the limo driver for prom (Billy).
• Rape as Backstory: Sam was molested, if not outright raped, as a young girl by a friend of her father. Also, Charlie's aunt was raped as a young girl, which led to her having serious psychological issues, which is why she herself molested Charlie.
• Their First Time: Both versions are played straight: an unanticipated tryst is interrupted by something.
• Twenty Minutes Into the Past: Published in 1999, takes place over the '91-92 school year.
• Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma: When learning how to punctuate, Charlie scatters punctuation all over that day's letter. The next day he apologizes (...it was funny at the time).