Thin Yet Thick: the perks of being a wallflower

the perks of being a wallflower
Stephen Chbosky
213 pages

Just as a reminder, "Thin Yet Thick" reads are books thin from cover to cover (around 200 pages or less), but have a thick and deep meaning. These reads will leave you feeling great and I think might even change your life. These books should take three days or fewer to read, and most likely are of an easy reading level.

The perks of being a wallflower is written through letters from Charlie, a fifteen-year-old incoming freshman with a lot on his mind. Once he enters high school, he becomes close friends with two seniors, Sam and Patrick, who teach him how to let loose on the dance floor, stick up for himself, and how to feel infinite. Although we don't know where Charlie is writing from, or who he is writing to, we do know his letters are unique, funny, and devastating as he learns not only about himself, but about the difficult world we live in.

Without giving to much away from the story, there is a piece from it that I would like to share with you, and the way I feel about it.

“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.” 

You could interpret this image quite literally - that watching people dance might be entertaining, but actually joining in yourself, will be a totally different experience. In a more metaphoric sense, this passage could mean something not so different. What if the dance floor stood for something else; like a kid being bullied, or a lost child in the mall? You could sit and watch, or you could be a help, have a say, and even make a change.

In the book, Charlie's English teacher tells him to "participate" more. At first Charlie takes this literally - he goes to the homecoming dance, watches the school's football games, but by the end of the book, Charlie finds another meaning to his teacher's words. The perks of being a wallflower deals with the delicate topic of passivity vs. passion, and what it means through the eyes of a normal teenage kid.

I hope you see just by this snippet of text that the perks of being a wallflower is a story not only to read, but to act on.

The perks of being a wallflower is becoming a movie! See it in theaters Sept. 13th!
Click here to watch the official trailer.