Book First, Movie Second

This next read is another book that is being made into a movie. BUT, it's not a movie yet, so it's cosher. And just for the record, this is kinda how I roll. I always try to read the book first, and now there are a whole bunch of movies coming out soon that I want to see that are based on books. So, beware in the coming months, many of the future posts will be about movie-books.

This one I chose to read because I am a frequenter of the Internet Movie DataBase. When I watch a movie, I end up looking up the movie on IMDB.com and go through the cast and, if I don't recognize them from anyting else, see if I have seen them in anything before (sometimes it's a long time ago, or they look REALLY different), or if I recognize them I see what they have done lately that I might be interesting in watching. Anywhoo, this one seemed to keep coming up in searches everytime I looked something up. I think it started with Percy Jackson and the Olympians (or the Lightning Theif, I can't remember what they called the movie). I read the book, decided the movie wasn't worth going to in the theatre, but I found it in a $5 bin and thought that Brayden might like it, so I bought it. Watched it, it was pretty ok, looked up the cast on IMDB. The guy that plays Percy Jackson is going to be in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Look up the movie. “Hey! Emma Watson (Hermione from Harry Potter) is in it. Cool.” Then I went to see We Need To Talk About Kevin with some friends. I followed the procedure and, lo-and-behold, the guy that plays Kevin is in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Then I saw the preview for This is 40. “Hey, I wonder what else Paul Rudd has been in lately” And guess what! The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Also, when I was watching movies every night when Rosalie was just home from the hospital, I watched Heavenly Creatures and I knew Melanie Lynsky from Ever After, Sweet Home Alabama, Up In The Air, and a bunch of other slightly older movies, wondered if she was doing anything more recent, anyway... I'm sure you can see the emerging pattern.

When I went to order the book from McNally, the trailer for Perks hadn't been released yet, but I still wanted to make sure I wasn't going to get the movie cover. I was really lucky I went when I did because a bunch of people I used to work with were working and the Wonderful and Fabulous Aimee helped me order it, and she said it has been one of her favourites since, like, highschool or something. So I was VERY hopeful about this book because I really do trust her opinion. (and after 50 Shades of Grey, I needed something that was ACTUALLY good)

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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 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, andThe 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 will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up.

One of the things I really appreciated about this novel was the format. More or less because I still don't have a lot of time to read when I'm at home. This book is written as a series of letters to an anonymous recipient from a boy named Charlie that is going into Grade 9 at the start of the book. The letters are generally pretty short (a page or two long), so even if I can only read one letter at a time, I'm still not leaving off in the middle of a section. Although I appreciate the format for my situation, I think it could have been used a bit better. You do see some progression in the writing style, but not anything particularly noticeable. I thought this was used better in the book Flowers for Algernon, where you see significant change in writing style and ability from the beginning to the middle, and from the middle until the end. I didn't really find that the format added anything to the story. It would have been just as good as a first person narrative.

This book crammed a lot of really hefty issues into one kid's life, but it really didn't seem like it was over the top. Charlie talks about rape, parental and romantic abuse, teen pregnancy, infidelity, homosexuality, teen drinking, drug abuse, suicide, and a bunch more things, but he's on the periphery of all of these issues. The story is set up nicely so that the reader doesn't necessarily see these things coming, but when they do it doesn't seem forced or rushed or just thrown in for kicks. You can really see how these characters get into these situations and why they are the type of people to do so. I really think this book is one of the best I have read that talks about all of these issues in a teen's life without making it seem cheap.

I really liked this book, if you think you may want to see the movie, read the book first, because from the trailer it looks like it might be a bit different and have to pull out some of the more interesting plot lines for time.