This is a book I've been wanting to read for a long while now. When the film first came out it was Emma Watson's first big thing after Harry Potter (which we all know I love) and I was so excited about it but I knew there was a book and I promised myself I would read it first. Then I moved to Germany and broke that promise. But in the end I find it important to remember that I did eventually read the book.
The novel is the story of Charlie, a high school freshman with absolutely zero friends and a very broken mind. The entire novel is written in the form of letters from Charlie to his "Dear Friend" who is never named and you only learn a little about. Charlie is intelligent but damaged and the combination is disastrous for his social life until he meets two step siblings who introduce him to a whole new world of people and experiences that he gets to observe and participate in. All the while Charlie is being challenged by his English teacher, being an amazing brother, and trying to survive high school. None of which is easy. But add on top the psychological battle Charlie is fighting as he discovers drugs and sex and music and literature, and it just all seems impossible. I'll stop before the spoilers start.
Admittedly I thought the film was better than the book. Not because the book was bad. The book was and is beautiful. But Chbosky is a film writer, Perks is his first novel, and as wonderful as reading Charlie's letters to this anonymous friend is, the film had a more solid progression of events. I also felt that the medium of film was just better suited for the complicated story of a kid who is so cerebral he doesn't even know what's happening in his mind. The book was certainly good enough (and expensive enough) to warrant a spot in a box back to home; all in all a solid A-.
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