Reflecting on the Theme - The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Now that I have finished the novel, I can say that without the epilogue, this book would have ended in a massive cliff hanger. Personally, I think the book couldn’t have ended in any other way then what the author listed, and at first I didn’t even think the book was going to end on a note like that. The only thing that I could say is how attached I got to this book. I finished the novel in about a week or two, and when I got to the ending, all I said to myself was “where’s part two?” The book is based on Charlie’s grade 9 year, and he only made friends with people in their senior years so now that they are leaving for college, Charlie is left alone to make new friends, and I really wanted to see what it was like.

The theme of this book in my opinion was based around friendship, Charlie was entering his first year of high school with zero friends and very low social skills, and this book follows his journey of him changing himself and giving others a different impression of who he is then who he used to be. I think the author did a good job in introducing Charlie to a new group of people at party that he got randomly invited to during that one talk with Sam and Patrick. I also feel like the author wanted to give the theme of his book more than just one theme, the other themes that I felt was in this novel was drugs and alcohol, Love, Family, and a lot more but I feel that they were just Charlie’s high school phases. Some moments that you can find these themes taking place in the novel are at pg.13 Charlie meets Sam and Patrick (Friendship). In pg.139 Charlie starts smoking pot, to keep himself together while he has to take a break from his friends (Drugs). In pg. 126-127, Charlie makes love to Mary Elizabeth for the first time (Love).