When I was around fourteen, I read The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. This book is about a fifteen year old boy named Charlie, who is trying to cope with the suicide of his best friend. It is written as a series of letters to an anonymous person who he refers to as his “friend.'' Charlie thinks of himself as a “wallflower”, meaning that he stays on the sidelines and would rather observe things instead of being the center of attention. He is very introspective, and views life differently than most people.
A lot of the time, the term “wallflower” has a negative connotation, where it could refer to someone who is socially awkward. But after reading this book, my view on the “wallflower” type of person was changed. When I started reading this book, I immediately felt a connection to it. Growing up, I was always more shy and reserved, and I never liked that about myself. People would always ask me, “why don’t you ever talk?”. And it wasn’t usually because I was scared to talk, I just had a naturally introverted personality. People around me, including my own parents, all pushed me to be more extroverted. But because being outgoing isn’t my natural personality, it always felt wrong when I tried.
As soon as I started reading this book, I immediately resonated with Charlie, the main character. Not only did I relate to him because of his shyness and introvertedness, but his experience in high school was very relatable. The message from this book is that sometimes things change and you don’t have any control over it, and that’s just a part of life. This book also changed my view of someone who is a “wallflower”, because I realized that it isn’t necessarily a bad thing to be quieter, because that allows you to look at life differently. And sometimes staying out of the center of attention allows you to have a more thoughtful and introspective outlook on the world.
So if you haven’t read this book, I definitely recommend that you do. It was unique to anything I’ve ever read, and it ended up having a big impact on the way I view life.
I like this a lot. Sometimes I think about what it would've been like to go to one of the public schools, where it'd be much easier to blend in to the sidelines and be a wallflower. For better or worse, that's not really possible at Uni. Anyway, it sounds like this book really resonated with you, and that's really nice.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Smita. At Uni, since the school is a lot smaller, it's harder to stay outside of everything. I'm not sure if I'd rather have that or go to one of the other schools here, which are bigger, with more people, and therefore easier to be in the sidelines.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to your experiences about being a naturally quiet person. It's kind of frustrating when people ask me why I'm quiet because I have no idea how to respond. I just shrug or something, which further entrenches their belief that I never speak. I also read The Perks of Being a Wallflower back around middle school and related to Charlie as well. I took pictures of a bunch of quotes I liked and they're probably still saved to my old google photos lol.
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