Dear Friend,

'So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.'

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It's hard to describe in words, how much this novel means to me. I have read coming-of-age books like The Catcher In The Rye or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn before, but up till when I was fifteen, I don't think I've ever felt like a book really understood me. That is, until The Perks of Being A Wallflower.

I remember reading it for the first time and just being incredibly astounded and moved by the sheer profundity of this story, this small collection of letters. It was as if all the weariness & frustration & things I could never quite actualize into words were present in that text and the spaces in between, all the adolescent awkwardness I've ever felt was reflected in the protagonist Charlie. It's amazing, to see your own experiences come alive on a page.

I don't think it's fair for people to sneer and say that The Perks of Being A Wallflower is just another book about teenagers and sex and drugs, because these things don't make it any less important, they make it more real. And it's not all about the sex and drugs, because all of us have had Patricks & Sams & Bills & Mary-Elizabeths in our lives, and all of us have felt the bit of magic found in the three-minute space of a song. Some might think that there is no point in sharing or writing or reading about these stories because everyone else has experienced it before but there is, because sometimes, we just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn't try to sleep with people even if they could have.


We just need to know that these people exist.