The Perks Of Being A Wallflower - Reading Committee & Book Club sessions

Dear Charlie,

many weeks ago now I participated at the Reading Committee

• First question, what is the Reading Committee ? 

This is a group of students who read books proposed by Mr Leah and then vote to choose the one they find the most interesting for the Book Club. The "theme" of this Reading Committee session was "Teenage books". For my first participation as a Reading Committee  member I didn't really follow the rules and decided to present to my colleagues a book that I read at the same time as they were reading the ones given by Mr Leah. Surprisingly, it was chosen by them to be the next Book Club novel.

The book is The Perks Of Being A Wallflower written by Stephen Chbosky which was made into a movie in 2012. 

the book cover and back

the movie official poster

•   Second question, what is this novel about ?

This is the story of Charlie, a shy and lonely 15 years old teenage boy, who is in freshman year of High School and feels terribly alone because of his lack of a social life. He is really intelligent, reads a lot and loves writing, which doesn't help him to socialise, but creates a friendship between him and his English teacher, who often gives him books to read and asks him to write essays about them. 
One day, Charlie meets Patrick a senior year boy and his stepsister of the same age, Sam. These two become his friends and his "mentors" in the social life as they take him to parties, introduce him to people and help him live his life as a teenager does. But he also discovers the world of alcohol, drugs and sex. 
Even though Charlie socialised, he is still the same boy, an incredible thinker who puts his emotions after the others'. Throughout the book, Charlie writes letters to an unknown person to whom he tells all his experiences, and also what he has been the witness of.

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower is a great book that brought a lot of people to the Book Club this May 8th in order to discuss it. The subjects that we talked about were: the idea of cliché around the story and its characters; the homosexuality expressed in the book; the reality described by Chbosky through Charlie's eyes; the epistolary form of the novel; the cultural elements such as music, books, movies showing the author tastes; the title's meaning... It was an interesting debate organised by three of the Reading Committee members (Agathe, Ajna and Judith, thanks to these three by the way).

Asleep - The Smiths (Charlie's favourite song of the mixtapes)

I recommend this book to all the people who weren't at the book club this day because it is really striking and pleasing!

PS: isn't it hilarious that I'm writing to you about this book in an epistolary form and your name is Charlie?