The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

The Perks of Being a Wallflower follows fifteen year old Charlie through a year of his life. He hasn’t really been making friends at school and has gone through some tough times recently with the death of his aunt Helen and his brother moving away to college. He makes friends with Sam and Patrick who are the same age as his older sister. Sam and Patrick introduce Charlie to their friends and with them Charlie experiences new things such as alcohol, drugs and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Throughout the novel Charlie reads twelve books given to him by his English teacher and these have an influence on him, as well as the new things he goes through. It’s a coming of age book in the same vein as a novel like The Catcher in the Rye.

I thought I would like Charlie as he is a nice guy, a bit shy and very intelligent. He also escapes into books which I can relate to. However, there was something not quite right about the way he is written. There are various things that have happened to Charlie that could account for this but for me it affects how realistic the book feels. Charlie is immature for his age and cries a lot. It’s difficult to imagine him having friends his own age, let alone friends older than him. I just can’t see him being accepted into the group as one of them. He does get more mature as the book goes on though. The characters of Sam and Patrick felt more real to me and it may have been a better book if it focused on them more. Sam has trouble with finding the right guy and Patrick is gay but the boy he loves isn’t as open as him which frustrates Patrick.

The book is written in the form of letters. It’s not clear who it is that Charlie is writing to, or if you would be able to work it out from reading the book a few times. To begin with the letters aren’t very complex but as Charlie’s English teacher helps him improve his writing through setting him essays, Charlie’s letters get better written. This is a nice touch and I think that would happen in reality if someone saw potential in you and encouraged you. My problem with the way the book is written is that I’m not sure Charlie is the most reliable narrator and it might have been nice to get things from a different person’s point of view. I think Charlie’s unreliability may be intended to add a certain charm to the book. In some ways it does and some ways it doesn’t.

The book deals with a lot of issues all at once and, being less than 250 pages, this is a big ask. It has sex, drugs, alcohol, mental health and abuse in it. It sort of felt like an episode of Skins, where it is a twisted, overly romanticised vision of what it is to be a teenager. To be fair, a lot of teenagers feel able to relate to Charlie but I don’t know how many of them would go out and get drunk and take drugs a lot. I get that Charlie is an outsider and everyone feels like that at some point in their lives until they find a group of friends that is like them and they don’t feel so alone. Really, this is enough of a story; it doesn’t need all the embellishments to make it more dramatic. It’s just over the top.

I didn’t like this book as much as I wanted to; I think I’m probably too old. This book and Looking for Alaska by John Green felt quite similar to me. I’m not sure why we can’t have a contemporary teenage novel that doesn’t have drugs and alcohol in it. Obviously yes a lot of teenagers do experiment with that kind of thing but that’s not true of everyone. I suppose it makes the book more exciting but it also glamorises it and it just feels like an easy plot device that lacks imagination. The book would have been a lot better if Chbosky had just stuck with the theme of abuse and gone with that, rather than feeling like he had to throw everything into the book.

Overall rating 3 out of 5.

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt

The Sisters Brothers are essentially hired killers in America in 1851. Eli and Charlie Sisters are employed to find a man named Hermann Kermit Warm and kill him. Their friend Henry Morris has been sent on ahead to scout out where Warm is and what his habits are. It turns out Warm has headed to California for the gold rush so the Sisters brothers must follow him there. Along the way they meet a colourful cast of characters and must try and survive long enough to get to their destination. Eli, the narrator, begins to question what they do for a living and whether they should be hanging up their pistols. Charlie has no such thoughts and Eli, being the younger, sort of goes along with Charlie all the while trying to assess his life and what it means.

I enjoyed spending time in Eli’s head and was interested in his inner conflict of wanting to give up his job but not wanting to leave his brother. Charlie would not have been a good narrator as he is drunk a lot of the time and isn’t fully aware of what’s going on around him. He is very alert when he needs to be and can’t be beaten in a gun fight. Eli doesn’t have a killing instinct to the same degree as Charlie but you still don’t want to mess with him. In another era, Eli would have been a really nice guy and may have been able to leave a double life, with a wife and kids but leaving on ‘business trips’ to go and kill people. Even in this era he’s a nice guy, just confused.

I wasn’t sure about reading this book to begin with. The first chapter is about the brothers’ horses and had the rest of the book been like that I probably wouldn’t have continued. I haven’t seen or read any westerns because I didn’t think I would find any interest in them. This one was a nice read. It wasn’t too focused on being a western and had a lot more to it. There was some psychology stuff and plenty of action. I was able to get into the world fairly easily but I couldn’t manage to really enjoy being in the world.

I think it helped that the book was nicely written and didn’t take very long to read. The book is split into three parts with a couple of intermissions. I didn’t really understand the point of the intermissions and whether they were real or some sort of dream sequence or something. As the book has an element of mystery in it, you have the build up, the journey and the conclusion. This worked well too as it is a familiar formula to most readers so it is something else that helps ease you in to the world of the western. I don’t imagine it can really be called a western in the true sense of the word but it certainly gives you a taste of it.

The book was better than I expected but I didn’t feel a big connection to it. I did find myself liking Eli and enjoying his struggle. I can understand why this book gained award attention when it first came out because it’s so different to most other books out there. Except, when you look at what it’s actually about, it’s not that different really; it just has an unusual setting. I’m not really sure what to rate this book as it was really good but I just can’t bring myself to give it four stars. I’d be interested to see what this author writes next as it should be interesting. I would recommend people give this book a chance and not dismiss it because of what it appears to be.

Overall rating 3.5 out of 5.

The Skin Map by Stephen R Lawhead

Kit meets his great-grandfather, Cosimo in an alley in London. He finds out that Cosimo uses ley lines to travel through time and dimensions. Kit also has this ability. His girlfriend, Mina, doesn’t believe him so he takes her through to another dimension. Except, as he doesn’t know what he’s doing, she ends up in Prague in 1606. There she meets Etzel and together they set up the first coffee shop in Prague. Kit, meanwhile, is with Cosimo and his friend Sir Henry. In order to try and work out where Mina is they must get the Skin Map. This was made by a man named Arthur Flinders-Petrie who also travelled like them. He made a map of where ley lines were and where they went in tattoos on his skin. After he died his skin was made into a map. However, there is also a man named Burleigh who is after the map, and so after Kit and Cosimo.

I really liked the sound of this book when I read the blurb on the back. I am a sucker for a good time travel novel. As with every time travel book, there are rules to the travel. In this case, you cannot travel to the future, only the past. This is fine because there is plenty of past to go to and plenty of parallel universes to visit. In this book you go to England, Prague and Egypt. You spend a lot of time in Prague with Mina but I think Egypt could have done with a bit more description. I couldn’t really picture where they were.

As usual, there were characters I liked and characters I didn’t. Unfortunately one of the characters I didn’t like was Kit and he is essentially the main character. He is supposed to be an adult but just acts like a child. To begin with I wasn’t sure about Mina but I really liked her towards the end and can’t wait to see how she develops in the next book. Cosimo was a fun character to read; he’s just a fun old guy who doesn’t take things too seriously, even when he is in serious danger. I’m interested to learn more about the baddy, Burleigh. It’s not clear what his agenda is and what exactly he wants from Cosimo. So far he is not nice at all so hopefully he will be a formidable opponent for Mina, Kit and their friends.

The writing style is okay; I felt it improved as the book went on and I was more engaged with the characters. Okay is pretty much how I felt about the whole book up until the last chapter. It ends with the reader asking a lot of questions, which I suppose you need to read the nest book to find out. There was also an epilogue with a teaser for some new characters in the sequel. Half way through I didn’t think I would be continuing the series. Now, provided we have less from Kit’s perspective and more girls kicking butt, I’m going to have to read the second. This is a planned five part series, so we’ll see how it goes as to whether I’ll be reading the whole series.

It was an alight read but nothing that special for me. It’s not very long so if you wanted a quick read I think you would enjoy it. It might also be a good read for teenagers wanting to get into adult books as it is part of a series and it’s easy to read. I have read better time travel books but it certainly could have been a lot worse.

Overall rating 3 out of 5.

Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

Wonderstruck is two stories in one. Ben is from a remote town in America in 1977. His mother has recently died and he has moved in with his aunt, uncle and cousins. One stormy night he is looking through his mother’s things and finds a book called Wonderstruck. In it is a bookmark to his mother from a man. He wonders if this man is his father and so decides to investigate. The only problem is that it would appear that his father lives in New York, which is miles away. There is also the fact that he has recently become deaf, following an accident and can neither sign nor read lips. The other story is told entirely through pictures and is set just outside New York in 1927. It follows Rose, a deaf girl, who isn’t allowed to do things by herself but really wants to explore the city just outside her doorstep. Throughout the book their stories merge and become one big story.

Ben is only young but so much has happened to him already. You can’t help but want to be his friend so he has someone to talk to and hang out with. When something life altering, like suddenly not being able to hear anything, happens to you it’s going to take a while to adjust. At first Ben tries to ignore it, but he finds that just isn’t possible. He needs to be able to communicate. Ben is both brave and cowardly. He decides to run away and look for his dad instead of dealing with problems at home but he isn’t scared to go around New York by himself. Rose is not the happiest child although she enjoys spending time with her brother, who seems to understand her best. She’s very creative and has lots of potential if only her parents could see past her being deaf.

The book is approximately one third written novel and two thirds graphic novel / picture book. Ben’s story is told through words, Rose’s through pictures. The two mediums are blended together seamlessly; allowing you to have cliff-hangers in the two stories when the author switches between the two. The written part has just the right amount of description and inner thought. The pictures convey inner thoughts through facial expressions but it’s the detail of the city that captures your imagination. Selznick is an incredible artist. You don’t need any words to know what’s going on and how the characters feel.

I really enjoyed this book, and although it’s over six-hundred pages it doesn’t take long to read. I really felt connected to both main characters and the ending just ties it all up nicely. It’s not the happiest of books as both have struggles to overcome, so the end makes it all the more touching. This would have been an excellent story had it been just words but the pictures just bring it to life so, at least for Rose, you don’t need to picture what she looks like. Selznick did a lot of research in to this book and I’d like to think that if I ever went to the American Museum of Natural History, I’d be able to picture Ben and Rose being there too. I think adults and children can enjoy Selznick’s work and would urge everyone to try one of his novels.

Overall rating 5 out of 5.

Reading Wrap Up July 2013

These are the books I read in July

The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky  --  3 / 5

Rumo by Walter Moers  --  5 / 5

The Silver Linings Play Book by Matthew Quick  --  4 / 5

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion  --  4 / 5

The Cutting Room by Jilliane Hoffman  --  4 / 5

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch  --  4 / 5

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde  --  4 / 5