Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
By Stephen Chbosky
Publication Date: February 1st, 1999 (MTV Books and Pocket Books)
Paperback, 213 pages
Genre: Contemporary; Realistic Fiction; YA
Source: an English teacher!

DESCRIPTION:

Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.

This haunting novel about the dilemma of passivity vs. passion marks the stunning debut of a provocative new voice in contemporary fiction: The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite.

Through Charlie, Stephen Chbosky has created a deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a powerful novel that wil spirit you back to though while and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up.

--from goodreads.com

REVIEW:

I like the one sentence summary imdb.com provides for The Perks of Being a Wallflower movie better than the actual book blurb, because the movie tagline seems to give you the gist of what The Perks of Being a Wallflower is about:

"An introverted freshman is taken under the wings of two seniors who welcome him to the real world."

Anyway, you don't have to do drugs or get wasted every weekend or be gay to relate to The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

To understand why the story is so relatable, you must first understand what a "wallflower" is, dear friend, which (according to the infamous urbandictionary.com) is "a type of loner" who is "a seemingly shy person who no one really knows, often some of the most interesting people if one actually talks to them." Wallflowers "know a lot about people, what they're truthfully like," and although being a wallflower isn't bad, the word is viewed negatively.

So, from that, I think we've all felt like (or have been/are wallflowers, such as myself) wallflowers even if we aren't one. It's about being an outsider, looking in. Observing. For example, in one part of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Charlie gets all of his friends the perfect Christmas present, and cares enough to make each personal, but no one gets him anything partially because nobody truly knows him. It's about not feeling connected to anyone. Feeling totally alone, which is completely relatable in most instances for all of us.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is written in a series of letters from the main character, Charlie, to some unnamed person, or perhaps even written to us. Each letter starts out "Dear Friend," and ends with "Love always, Charlie." Some entries are beautiful. Some horrible. Some humorous. If you don't account for the themes and life lessons within the story, you will take a lot less from it than others and like it a lot less to. Without thinking about the profound meanings of each letter, the whole story can seem mundane.

I adored Patrick, Charlie's gay friend. However, I found him more likable in the movie, probably because he was more flamboyant. Movie Patrick just gave more life to the meaning of Book Patrick.

(Speaking of the movie, it definitely wasn't as good as the book, and the vibe I got from it was different from the book's vibe, but it does the book a good amount of justice. It's worth seeing).

I'd like to leave you with the best quote of the book, which has a sort of cult-following:

"We accept the love we think we deserve."

--The Perks of Being a Wallflower

RATING:

Review: Trafficked, by Kim Purcell

Trafficked
By Kim Purcell
Publication Date: February 16th, 2012 (Viking Juvenile)
Hardcover, 384 pages
Genre: Contemporary; Realistic Fiction; Social Issues; YA
Source: Library

DESCRIPTION:

The American Dream becomes a nightmare...

Ever since her parents were killed and her beloved uncle vanished, Hannah has struggled to support herself and her grandmother. So when she's offered the chance to leave Moldova and become a nanny for a family in Los Angeles, it seems like the opportunity of a lifetime.

At first, Hannah likes her new employers. But after weeks of working sixteen-hour days and not being allowed to leave the house, she still hasn't been paid. As things go from bad to worse, Hannah finds herself doing things she never imagined herself capable of—lying, eavesdropping, even sneaking out late at night to meet Colin, the boy who lives next door. And when she gets caught, the mother threatens her with a fate even worse than being a slave: prostitution.

When Hannah discovers that the father knew her family back in Moldova, she's determined to find out if he knows anything about her missing uncle. But as she uncovers the truth, she may be exposing more than she bargained on—and putting her life in danger.

—from goodreads.com

REVEIW:

Trafficked, by Kim Purcell, made me furious—in a good way. In a "hey-let's-all-go-out-into-the-community-and-spread-awareness-about-human-trafficking-in-the-United-States-because-yes-it-does-go-on-here" kind of way, which is what the author's intentions were, no doubt.

Trafficked isn't about sexual slavery; rather it's more about domestic slavery. In Kim Purcell's Author's Note at the end of the book, Purcell states that trafficked people are "hidden in warehouses, brothels, and regular American neighborhoods," the last fact being chilling because you, dear reader, could have a "Hannah" living in the house next to you.

I feel this way because Kim Purcell has injected her little gem with what I like to call "Emoto-juice," a serum powerful enough to make even the coldest of people emote. The serum is released by unfortunate happenstances when god-awful things happen to a character who does not deserve those awful things to happen to them.

I'd love to provide you with examples from Trafficked, but each misfortunate happenstance is a spoiler in a way, because through inference and prediction you'd know what would happen (and I'm sure you'd figure it out, because the characters are quite predictable. Concerning the predictability of the plot...

The beginning and end were predictable, but the meat of the story wasn't. The web of plot points was made up of lies and those lies kept being rewritten and rewritten until I was slightly lost in the plot. Some points just didn't seem to make sense, or add up. I was content with the ending because I felt like it left a lot of loose ends lying around, and I wanted to know exactly what would happen.

Even though Hannah could be naive sometimes, she deserves the Badge of Courage. She's beautiful, not much of a physical fighter, but she is a psychological fighter with great intelligence and wits about her. She never, ever cries or yells or talks back because she rightly knows it gives the bully satisfaction. She creates a docile facade she uses around her employer, but she was always buzzing with emotion and thoughts under the surface. Even though it was just as easy for Hannah to numb her emotions and become part of the living dead, she refused to do so.

RATING:

Review: I'll Be There, by Holly Goldberg Sloan

I'll Be There
By Holly Goldberg Sloan
Publication Date: May 3rd, 2011 (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Hardcover, 392 pages
Genre: Adventure; Coming of Age; Contemporary; Romance; YA
Source: Library

DESCRIPTION:

Sam Border wishes he could escape. Raised by an unstable father, he's spent his life moving form place to place. But he could never abandon his little brother, Riddle.

Riddle Border doesn't talk much. Instead, he draws pictures of the insides of things and waits for the day when the outsides of things will make sense. He worships his older brother. But how can they leave when there's nowhere to go? Then everything changes. Because Sam meets Emily.

Emily Bell believes in destiny. She sings for her church choir, though she doesn't have a particularly good voice. Nothing, she feels, is more coincidence. And she's singing at the moment she first sees Sam.

Everyone whose path you cross in life has the power to change you—sometimes in small ways, and sometimes in greater ways than you could have ever known. Beautifully written and emotionally profound, Holly Goldberg Sloan's debut novel deftly explores the idea of human connection.

—from goodreads.com
 

REVEIW:

OhmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshOHMYGOSH!

I'LL BE THERE WAS FLIPPIN' AMAZING! WHERE HAS THIS BOOK BEEN MY WHOLE LIFE? You'll be asking the same thing once you read it. :)

Sam Border, a kindhearted musical-protege, and his highly introverted brother, Riddle Border, live a nomadic life with their violence-prone, schizophrenic father, Clarence Border. Life with Clarence Border consists of Clarence driving his truck and kids (which are the last thought in his life) to a medium-sized town. Here, Clarence commits petty crimes, such as stealing, breaking-and-entering, and vandalism. When people start getting suspicious, Clarence packs the truck up and leaves, taking Sam and Riddle with him.

Because Clarence is a criminal, Sam and Riddle have to be invisible, leading into the fact that seventeen-year-old Sam hasn't been to school since second grade, and twelve-year-old Riddle has never been to school.

However, one day, Sam "randomly" picks a church service to go to not to be preached to, but to hear the music. At the service a girl named Emily Bell sings "I'll Be There" and Sam falls in love with her—convinced not by her awful singing voice, but by the fact that she seems to be singing to him, singing the powerful words sincerely—completely changing his life and his brother's life.

Until they have to pack up and leave again with their father, leaving the life and love they established behind...

Sam Border, Riddle Border, and Emily Bell, were characterized much, but it worked for the style of the book. There were at least eleven secondary characters who were essential to the plot as a whole. At the beginning, all of their plot lines seemed random, and I had no idea how things would play out, but in the end, the strands came together to resolve the story beautifully.

I'll Be There is written in third-person omniscient point-of-view, making the reader feel like a spectator, watching events unfold. If I remember correctly, Sam, Riddle, Emily, all eleven (if not more) secondary characters, and a bear (yes, a bear) were all highlighted at some point by the omniscient narrator.

Because the characters (even the main characters) weren't characterized into 3D existence, because the book is written in third-person omniscient, and because the writing style of the book is straightforward, each portion of the book that follows a different character feels like a snapshot of what (or who) the character really is.

In that way, I'll Be There, by Holly Goldberg Sloan, is very much like a delightful movie (and it should be made into a movie), and reads exactly what a movie would read like, offering the movie-goer a glimpse into many different lives, lives of both horrific shock and of unmistakable beauty.

RATING:

 

Review: Dark Water, by Laura McNeal

Dark Water
By Laura McNeal
Publication Date: September 10th, 2010 (Alfred A. Knopf)
Hardcover, 287 pages
Genre: Contemporary; Romance; YA
Source: Library

DESCRIPTION:

Fifteen-year old Pearl DeWitt and her mother live in Fallbrook, California, where it's sunny 340 days of the year , and where her uncle owns a grove of 900 avocado trees. Uncle Hoyt hires migrant workers regularly, but Pearl doesn't pay much attention to them...until Amiel. From the moment she sees him, Pearl is drawn to this boy who keeps to himself, fears being caught by la migra, and is mysteriously unable to talk. And after coming across Amiel's makeshift hut near Agua Prieta Creek, Pearl falls into a precarious friendship—and a forbidden romance.

Then the wildfires strike. Fallbrook—the town of marigolds and palms, blood oranges and sweet limes—is threatened by the Agua Prieta fire, and a mandatory evacuation order is issued. But Pearl knows that Amiel is right in the path of the fire, with no one to wan him, no way to get out. Slipping away from the safety and her family, Pearl moves towards the creek, where the smoke has become air, the air smoke.

-from goodreads.com

REVIEW: 

When I read the synopsis, I expected a story about the undying, star-crossed love of an illegal migrant worker, Amiel, and his employer's niece, Pearl. I anticipated a bunch of things to happen based on this but none of them came true because what started off as star-crossed love was twisted by the author, Laura McNeal, resulting a in a unique and offbeat (in a good way) story.

Even though Dark Water wasn't what I was expecting, I was pleasantly surprised when the book turned out to be so much more than a romance—in fact, it was mostly a story about family.

Still, I feel like the book description is a essentially a synopsis of Dark Water; not much more than what the book description says happened, besides a few fillers and a bitter ending. When I think about the way the description gives the whole story away, it makes me wonder if the story is even suppose to be about Pearl and Amiel...

Pearl's personality was unique and reflected the decisions she made when conflict arose, but I don't feel like she changed any. I liked Amiel best though, mostly because his character was different from the YA romance fiction I've read where the male love interest is (in short) a sensitive jerk (which makes no sense to me). Amiel was quiet, broken, and compassionate, which equals lovable in my calculations.

If you read this, don't expect a big soap opera where Amiel is almost deported, but Pearl marries him to keep him in The United States, and they live happily ever after, because this isn't that story. 

Dark Water is, more than anything, about the price of foolishness.

RATING: