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In The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Charlie chronicles his freshman year in high school in a series of letters to an anonymous recipient. It's clear from the begining that Charlie is not your ordinary teenager and that he is shouldering more burdens than should be asked of a single fifteen year old kid. In his first letter he reveals that he is grappling with the fact that his best friend Michael has recently committed suicide, and he mentions having seen Susan, Michael's girlfriend from middle school, who he finds has changed over the summer and is evidently no longer interested in being his friend:

"In middle school, Susan was very fun to be around.

She liked movies, and her brother Frank made her tapes of this great music that she shared with us. But over the summer she had her braces taken off, and she got a little taller and prettier and grew braes. Now, she acts a lot dumber in the hallways, especially when boys are around."

Charlie, who struggles with relationships, meets a senior in his shop class named Patrick and subsequently, Patrick's step-sister, Sam. These relationships become crucial to Charlie and his story of his freshman year. As the wallflower of the subtitle, Charlie's struggle is moving from an observer to a participant in his own life, and Sam and Patrick are instrumental in encouraging Charlie in this direction:

"Charlie, don't you get it? I can't feel that. It's sweet and everything, but it's like you're not even there sometimes. It's great that you can listen and be a shoulder to someone, but what about when someone doesn't need a shoulder? What if they need the arms or something like that? You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love.

You just can't. You have to do things."

Charlie's is a heavy story for teen and adult readers alike. Don't be fooled by the novel's size and the seeming breeziness of its structure. Within just a few pages, Charlie deals with a wide array of issues including molestation, domestic abuse , rape, and drug use. With experience beyond what any teenager should have to confront, Charlie turns inward and this detachment is what renders his voice much younger than that you might expect of a character his age. At the same time, his actual thoughts seem to be those of someone much older, as with this insight surrounding It's a Wonderful Life:

"The family watched It's a Wonderful Life, which is a very beautiful movie. And al I could think was why didn't they make the movie about Uncle Billy? George Bailey was an important man in the town. Because of him, a whole bunch of people got to get out of the slums. He saved a town, and when his dad died, he was the only guy who could do it… I just wanted the movie to be about Uncle Billy because he drank a lot and was fat and lost the money in the first place. I wanted the angel to come down and show us how Uncle Billy's life had meaning."

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is an intriguing read, and it has an incredible cult following. Detractors will point out innumerable inconsistencies in Charlie's character - the notion that Charlie would be as sophisticated a reader and writer as Charlie is, the incontinuity of his emotional intelligence and evident emotional level, and the incongruities of his high school experience. However, Chbosky's Charlie is an unforgettable character with a unique voice and the story, told as it is through Charlie's letters, is undeniably engaging.