THE TRUTH IS, I SHOULD HAVE READ THE BOOK YEARS AGO.  Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower has been a critical (and criticized) favorite for over a decade.  I’d seen it and heard of it for most of my time in Hawaii (when I really started reading contemporary fiction).  I finally got a copy of it as a gift some time ago, but I still didn’t read it.  Until yesterday and today.  Written as a series of letters over the course of one kid’s freshman year of college, the book is a quick and intense read.  It’s a coming of age story that I’m not afraid to put it in the same vein as Catcher in the Rye or The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.  And it’s really well-written.  Granted, it’s also been banned by a number of high school libraries over the course of its existence, which is understandable given the content.  But there is something resonant and true about it, something about high school and culture in the early 90s and what life is like when your friends are always older than you.

The movie version of the book comes out next month.  That and a strong desire to read some good, short fiction got me into the it yesterday.  I refrained from watching the trailer, though I did know that Emma Watson was one of the characters in it (and she’s not how I pictured the character at all, of course).

If you want a challenging, quick, but enlightening read, The Perks of Being a Wallflower might be for you.  Just know what you’re getting yourself into.  Here’s the trailer for the movie.