The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I’m reading a book called “The Perks Of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky is about a boy named Charlie who is writing to an anonymous friends about school, his friends and his family. There are many major issues happening in this book like: kids doing drugs, and domestic violence.

Sam and Patrick, Charlie’s best friends smoke and go to parties where they smoke pot and get high, and Charlie acts like it’s okay and perfectly acceptable. In the book it says, “I ate the pumpkin pie because the lady said it was in season, and Patrick and Sam smoked more cigarettes.” He sort of just goes along with it, and maybe it’s because it was a different time and more people smoked but Sam and Patrick are still young. Later in the book Sam and Patrick take Charlie to a party and he accidently gets high on pot brownies, but he didn’t seem to care and even though he’s a freshman in high school and Sam and Patrick and juniors no one else seemed disturbed by it.

Another major problem in “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” is domestic violence. Charlie’s dad’s stepfather beat Charlie’s dad, his aunt and his grandmother. His aunt went on to marry men that beat her and her children. In the book Charlie’s father helps Charlie’s cousin because he’s the only one in the family that “has a chance,” a chance to be good to his kids and his wife. Charlie’s Aunt Helen was molested as a girl and Charlie’s sister was slapped by her boyfriend. Charlie’s family is deeply scared by domestic abuse and I wonder if Charlie or any of his siblings will end up hurting their wives or kids. Charlie says how sad he his about his family members being beaten but I feel like he doesn’t really see what it means to be abused or how much of a stand his father takes against it. I also feel that when a family has a history like that, even when you know that it’s terribly wrong, it might slip out and you might hurt someone. In the book it says, “I kept asking like little kids always do and my Aunt Helen started crying very hard. That’s when my dad slapped me.” Even though his dad knows violence is wrong he still hit his son because he didn’t know what else to do.

The major problems in “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” so far are teenagers doing drugs and smoking and domestic violence and the affect it has on families even if its different generations. Charlie sees the world differently then most people. His Aunt Helen's death sends him into fits of depression but his best friends smoking and doing pot doesn't bother him at all. He's saddened by the violence in his family but I feel like he doesn't understand it, he never really talks about how it affects him or anyone else in his family besides his dad which I find strange. But Charlie is an innocent kid who doesn't quite understand his life and why things happen but he's trying to make the most of it and he's trying to make it a good as he can.