We all have a story about the first time we read The Perks Of Being A Wallflower. I was in 9th grade. I have never felt so lonely in my life, and the only comforting thing anyone could tell me was that I’d grow out of it or the medication for my anxiety would help. When I read Perks, I felt like maybe I wasn’t as completely alone in the world. Maybe other people were out there having the same fears and thoughts and experiences I was, but I didn’t know because no one was admitting how fucking hard it is to be young. The Perks Of Being A Wallflower admits how hard it is, but also gives us a bit of hope that things will turn out okay eventually.
Let’s talk about how Logan Lerman was perfectly cast as Charlie.
It also made us all obsessed with “Asleep” by the Smiths, am I right? Along with other sad 90s songs, of course.
I know you all have similar experiences the first time you read it, and all of us at Autostraddle have a lot of feelings about it, too. I know you’re just as excited as we are about the movie. I love that Stephen Chbosky wrote the book, wrote the screenplay and directed the movie. Don’t you just feel like this movie is going to turn out to be amazing?
[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE7CGX1d6LU’]
The Perks soundtrack is also pretty perfect:
The Samples – Could It Be Another Change
Dexys Midnight Runners – Come On Eileen
Galaxie 500 – Tugboat
New Order – Temptation
The Innocence Mission – Evensong
The Smiths – Asleep
Cracker – Low
Sonic Youth – Teenage Riot
XTC – Dear God
Cocteau Twins – Pearly-Dewdrops’ Drops
Michael Brook – Charlie’s Last Letter
David Bowie – Heroes
The soundtrack officially releases on September 18th, when you can also watch an new clip of the film on MTV, which should tide you over until they begin exclusive engagements of The Perks of Being a Wallflower on September 21st.
Maybe it’s sad that these are now memories. And maybe it’s not sad.
To celebrate the release of the movie, we’re giving away two prize packs! Two lucky commenters will receive the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack and a movie tie-in copy of the book! To win, comment below with your favorite quotation from the book or why you’re excited for the movie! The two comments with the most +1s by Tuesday will be the winners, so make sure you use a valid email address. Yay feelings!
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You can like and follow The Perks of Being A Wallflower film on Facebook, Twitter (#WallflowerMovie), Pinterest and Tumblr!
Fav quote by Perks : “We accept the love we think we deserve.” mind blown.
“It’s much easier not to know things sometimes.
And to have french fries with your mom be enough.”
And Emma Watson. :3
I haven’t read the book, but the trailer gave me serious goosebumps!
Sidenote: Emma Watson and Mae Whitman in the same film? YES.
I love Mae Whitman. She is so fantastic.
Because Emma Watson can do no wrong
“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
This has affected my life, and _Perks_ gave it a voice. I’ve felt alone most of my life, and felt that my friends were people who either controlled me or abandoned me when someone else came along. I realized that I had to think that I deserved better companions in my life, and stop accepting whatever attention was thrown my way. I should not feel lucky that people tolerated being friends with me; instead, I should think that they should consider themselves lucky to be my friend. You can’t have good relationships (romantic or otherwise) without loving yourself first. It’s taken me so long to figure that out, but I wouldn’t have been able to do it without this book by my side.
I hate to pull a ditto of the previous quotes, but I really do love, “We accept the love we think we deserve.” It’s just such a powerfully true statement. Second favorite would probably be, “And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.”
“I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn’t try to sleep with people even if they could have. I need to know that these people exist.”
yep.. This. agreed.
“I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won’t tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn’t change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn’t really change the fact that you have what you have. Good and bad.”
Hi, I don’t have the book. Which is why I want a copy of it, pls? Kthxbai.
Please can we send it to this person? Please guys, think how amazingly perfect a way this is for a first-timer to read the book…
I also haven’t read it, but I would like to know what perks one experiences as a wallflower (besides having rights to the song “One Headlight”).
I’m going to school in Pittsburgh right now and one of my strongest memories of my first time coming here was driving through the tunnel on the way back from the airport. I understood, in that moment, minutes before becoming a graduate student, what it meant to feel infinite.
emma watson emma watson emma watson emma watson
the book is good too but
emma watson emma watson emma watson emma watson
please note that i didn’t even use copy-paste, i actually typed her name 8 times
This book has not left my mind since I read it in early high school. I’m looking forward to seeing how well it’s held over time, and if the movie has the same impact on me now that I’m just starting grad school vs. when I was a freshman/sophomore.
Also, Emma Watson & Mae Whitman. Always yes.
GAHH so many feelings.
I read this book for the first time in 9th grade, and it truly defined me, absorbed me, swallowed me whole. I wrote a paper on it for my 9th grade literature class and afterward made every single person in the class read it. Some people connected with the story just as easily as I did, and some did not, but not one person had the book for more than one day because once you start, it sucks you in. Chbosky is a complete genius, and best of all – he undoubtedly had no clue what he was doing when he wrote that book. No idea how many lives he would change, and how many lives he would change.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. That’s why I’m trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning.”
This quote not only describes my adolescence, but the majority of my young adulthood. For me, it was like (and is still like, unfortunately) pretending to be this well adjusted functioning member of society was just so completely exhausting I wanted to fall out in a way that isn’t even possible. Which leads to my next favorite quote —
“Then I turned around and walked to my room and closed my door and put my head under my pillow and let the quiet put things where they are supposed to be.”
Which is probably very self explanatory.
“I started at my reflection and the trees behind it for a long time. Not thinking anything. Not feeling anything. Not hearing the record. For hours.
Something really is wrong with me. And I don’t know what it is.” AND AND AND And “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.”
I spent the majority of my teen years trying to figure out how that could be.. and it turns out its a little something called manic deppressive disorder… and now I will spend the entirety of my adult life trying to sort out everything that comes with that.. but this book let me know that obviously someone else out there felt exactly the same way I was or it never would have ended up in a book, and therefore I could survive it.
“Please believe that things are good with me, and even when they’re not, they will be soon enough”
It took me a very long time to believe that this could actually be a true statement. And since then I have used actual quote when speaking with friends and family members. Chbosky, I apologize for copyright infringement.
I have read this book so many times my copy is literally in shreds. I have a hole punched in it with a binder ring strung through so I don’t lose any pages. Post-it notes and dog ears riddle the pages. I have highlighted, underlined, asterisked, struckthrough, and footnoted most every page. And every single time I read it I take something new out of it (kind of like the museum in The Catcher in the Rye… the book doesn’t change, you do.) But most of all, I am at a crossroads. I had a severe falling out with my best friend of 14 years 3 and a half years ago. No contact after an email arrived from her outlining all of the reasons why we don’t fit in each other lives anymore. Very recently, she emailed me again to say that she had seen the trailer for Perks and thought of me – and wanted to know if I could ever forgive her for driving a tour bus over my soul (my words not hers.) I read Perks again that day, and found a quote that had never really jumped out at me before – “Things change. And friends leave. And life doesn’t stop for anybody.”
\\\\If you made it this far.. Props for having a larger attention span that I do. and please click the plus button if you can understand and identify with any of my emotional word vomit.
***how many lives he would change and how many lives he would save***
Much as I love the book, the thing I notice the most at this moment is how hilarious it is that no one is reaaaally going to be +1ing other people’s comments for a very, very good reason.
this makes me sad that you said this because I +1ed my favorite and then went to +1 mine and realized for the first time that I cant. Oh well.
I was a high school English teacher for a few years and my fondest memory of teaching The Perks of Being a Wallflower was the moment when I realized a kid who always sat in the back and grumbled about everything was sneakily reading ahead of where we were as a class, devouring this novel and loving it. This book was a gateway to reading for a lot of students who had struggled in the past and I will always love it for that.
you must have been basically the coolest English teacher ever…
except for my Novels and Films teachers.. he let us write our own curriculum as long as it passed the School Board’s qualifications. He was the man.
Logan Lerman and Paul Rudd = two hot Jews in one movie.
This movie marks a shift in social consciousness, finalizes the changes in teenage rites of passage. Screw the old benchmarks of binge drinking and sex; instead invite moments of creativity and loyalty to serve as the defining moments of high school.
The book began this shift, shows like Glee and Awkward have taken up the torch, and the movie will cement the new mantra of the North American teenager. And it is a hell of a better one than that of the old guard. I am damn excited to see it unfold.
“I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won’t tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn’t change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn’t really change the fact that you have what you have. Good and bad. Just like what my sister said when I had been in the hospital for a while. She said that she was really worried about going to college, and considering what I was going through, she felt really dumb about it. But I don’t know why she would feel dumb. I’d be worried, too. And really, I don’t think I have it any better or worse than she does. I don’t know. It’s just different. Maybe it’s good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think that the only perspective is to really be there. Like Sam said. Because it’s okay to feel things. And be who you are about them.”
I’m scared to see the movie, because I want to love it, but I think the book has been so built up in my mind that I don’t know if anything can compare. This book has been with me since I was 13, when I read it and eventually lost my first copy because I lent it to so many people and eventually one didn’t give it back. It was there at 14 when I locked myself in the bathroom on a family vacation with just a chocolate bar and my copy of Perks and read from midnight until I finished the book and felt a little better. It was there at 20 when I was hit with a bout of depression and needed something to get me though, so I held it close to me as I finished it on a bus and couldn’t stop myself from crying.
I’m excited for the movie because I want it to introduce a whole new generation to this book that, really, is more than a book. I’m excited for more people to experience it and have it shape their lives.
“I think it was the first time in my life I ever felt like I looked “good”. Do you know what I mean? That nice feeling when you look in the mirror, and your hair’s right for the first time in your life? I don’t think we should base so much on weight, muscles, and a good hair day, but when it happens, it’s nice. It really is.”
Hi I’m not a member so I can’t +1 this but could you count a vote for this one please?
I rully wanna read and watch this because I haven’t and all the cool people I admire love it. <3
The first time I tried to read Perks I had to stop after the first two pages. If you haven’t read the book, they contain a suicide. I was in middle school; most of what I remember from then was unhappiness. My friends were talking about (and experiencing, I guess) suicide and self mutilation and depression and abuse and back then I read two kinds of young adult books: ones in which the characters are strong/disciplined enough (as I thought of it back then) to actually do these things, and ones in which the characters were happy enough to not have these things cross their minds. Both worlds seemed foreign to me, and both fascinated me. I read these books like kids eat candy on Halloween: finish one, start the next, over and over until everything hurts. Perks, I remember, was the worst. The narrator in those two pages hit home for me–the distance, the intrigue, the unrelenting melancholy. It wasn’t until high school that I managed to pick up the book and read it through. To be honest, I don’t remember hardly anything that happens in it, just those two pages, just that suicide, just how I felt reading it for the first time in my bed in middle school.
Now I’m in college. I have amazing friends, a family I really appreciate, a school that I love, and while the depression still comes around sometimes I really am happy and proud of myself and confident. I’m excited to see Perks because I’m in such a different place in my life than I was back then, because I want to know the feeling of experiencing this story again for the first time–entirely different because it’s a movie instead of a book. I know that when I see it I will hear a little bit of myself from all those years ago in the narrator; and while this terrifies me, I know that I’m strong enough to finish all the way to the end.
Oh, and Emma Watson. Duh.
I totally read this book in high school and then passed it around to all my friends while insisting that they write comments in the margin while they were reading it. Cutest keepsake ever … that I lost :(
But, in any case, I’m excited because the movie was filmed in Pittsburgh(!!), which is an amazing place.
This has been my favorite quote of the book since it first came out: “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.” Because it’s so true.
I can’t wait for this movie just because I want to see how someone else envisions it, like through the director’s point of view.
“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.”
“LET’S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN”
oh wait
“He’s my whole world.”
“Don’t ever say that about anyone again. Not even me.”
I love this exchange, speaking as someone who has made someone their whole world and then had that world forcibly imploded. I also love it speaking as someone who has been the whole world of someone else, and then watched that someone else fall apart.
” and for a moment, i felt infinite “
I recently checked this book out from the library. Better than rereading it for the first time in YEARS was rereading it with comments written in the margins in pencil from other people who had the copy before me. Disconnected book club?
“Are you thirsty”
“Uh-Huh.”
“What would you like to drink?”
“A Milkshake.”
“He’s stoned.”
“Are you hungry, Charlie?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What would you like to eat?”
“A Milkshake.”
Because this is exactly what happens to me
“Do you know what ‘masturbation’ is? I think you probably do because you are older than me. But just in case, I will tell you. Masturbation is when you rub your genitals until you have on orgasm. Wow!” This quote is underrated.
Also:
“I am very interested and fascinated by how everyone loves each other but noone really likes each other”.
“I really feel like everyone should have watercolors, magnetic poetry, and a harmonica”.
The trailer makes my stomach backflip a little bit
I loved this book when I was in school. I haven’t re-read it since. Many of my old favourite things — books, movies, music — stayed with me and I still regularly return to them, but others have just become far less interesting to me as I grew up and matured. It’s a bit like children’s books, some of them are still great when you’re an adult and some just seem really dull. I don’t really want to know what category Perks belongs in, probably because it was so important to me.
I copied the “Chops” poem into many of my journals from that time, so I’ve re-read it several times since. It’s not really as fantastic as I remembered it was, and not as great as the rest of the novel, but reading it is like opening a mini-time capsule about how my younger self felt. I think that it really captures what Perks is about, feeling that nothing is as innocent as it used to be and then realising that maybe it never was, and coming to terms with it all.
As a side-note, my favourite thing were totally the characters. I can’t remember all their names now to save my life, but they felt so… human to me. I’ve always been big on books that remind you that the world isn’t divided into “good” and “evil”, and that sometimes people you love can do terrible things, and people you’re not fond of can be absolutely amazing.
I know this sounds super pretentious and tl;dr, but I don’t actually want any “likes”, lol. I already own the book and I’ll probably get the soundtrack when it comes out. I just wanted to share my FEELS and I hope that people who haven’t read the book win this, especially young gayelles who might need a friend who will listen, someone who could didn’t have sex with someone who was drunk even though they could have. Plus, my comment is totally not a quote from the book or why I’m excited for the movie… but for the record, I’m excited (and a little afraid) because it’s a chance to experience it again, and if it’s disappointing I can simply blame it on the fact that it’s a movie adaptation. Mostly, because it has Emma Watson and I think she’s awesome.
“And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.”
And a movie with Emma Watson AND Mae Whitman? Done. Because they may be two of my favorite people ever.
This is pretty much my life:
“So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we’ll never know most of them. But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.”
I don’t have a story; I’ve never read that book.
I didn’t really realize how strongly Perks affected me when I was in high school until I just broke into tears when I saw the trailer for the first time, on the Hunger Games DVD. So, I’m excited to sob on the ride to the theater and during the movie and then for the rest of my life.
I can’t give you a favorite quote, though I’ve seen some pretty cool ones on Tumblr, for a simple reason: I haven’t read the book yet. I would like to read it. From everything I’ve heard it must be really good. But I am financially squeezed at present and cannot buy it. I’m going to the library this week… maybe I’ll look for it there…
I guess my story about the first time I read this book is still to be created.
If it was possible, I would plus one your comment multiple times.
I read the book in my early high school years (which makes me feel really old) and it was the best thing I ever read at the time because I felt so alone and I didn’t know people like me existed, people like Charlie.
So I hope you win because you should have the chance “create” that story of your own.
I loved Perks of Being a Wallflower when I was in high school and still enjoy re-reading it, which means my response to the movie, unlike most people here it seems, is to run as far away from the movie as possible. The only movie that’s ever lived up to the book for me was The Hours, and that’s because I saw the movie before I read the book. Having read this book so many times, I won’t be able to handle a film adaptation (regardless of Stephen Chbosky’s participation) without getting angry.
The “That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years…” quote, among others describing Charlie’s experience with mental illness, stuck with me the most from that time in my life. Shortly after I read it for the first time, on the recommendation of the first girl I ever fell for (the older, out, independent non-conformist), she made me a CD and wrote two things on it. The first was “Don’t ever touch a raptor” (L&D shout-out). The second was “…and in that moment, I swear we were infinite.” That quote shaped how I articulate those experiences of soaring and beauty.
My old best friend gave me this book for Christmas two years ago. I made a spotify playlist of One Winter (side two) and listened to it for the rest of that winter and spring. “Asleep” sounded like it was written for my feelings. I think everyone feels that way about at least one The Smiths song. I learned to play it on the piano.
My favourite quote, I think, comes from the first page. It made so much sense and it’s still something I go over and over in my head.
“so, this is my life. and i want you to know that i am both sad and happy and i’m still trying to figure out how that can be.”
I am now 40-some comments down, so I doubt I will be a prize winner, but I want to share feelings anyway!
I hit an ultimate low during my freshman year of college. Later, I would be diagnosed and treated for depression and anxiety, but at the time I just thought I was dysfunctional and crazy. I had virtually no friends, and the few friends I had from work had me convinced that Jesus was the only thing which could help me overcome my saddness. I spent loads of time at church, which didn’t work, making me more frustrated. I didn’t realize I was gay, and had been dating my first boyfriend for months. He was a sweet boy, but the relationship terrified me and I hated it when he touched me. This made me feel more broken and alone, since I couldn’t figure out why a nice boy couldn’t make me happy. I went to school full time, worked 30 hours a week at a shoe store, and cut myself every night before I went to bed exhausted. I made no effort to make new friends or reconcile with my family. I had accepted without hesitation that my life wasn’t all that great, and if it got worse, I could just kill myself.
That summer, my childhood best friend invited me to take a trip to Florida with her family. I accepted the invitation as an escape from my life. My brother loaned me some books to read on the flight down, The Perks of Being a Wallflower included. I read the entire thing on the flight down, and re-read it on the flight back. I was five years older than Charlie, but I connected with everything he said. When Bill told Charlie, “We accept the love we think we deserve,” I cried. I understood. I didn’t think I deserved any love, so my life was falling to pieces.
I came home from Florida a better person, in part because of that book. I spent a week believing I was a fun person to be around. I let myself feel happiness for the first time in a while. The book was fresh in my mind the first time I saw the ocean, and I understood “feeling infinite.” I went home, broke up with my boyfriend, and started talking to people in my classes.
Of course, a book didn’t magically cure my depression, but it gave me some insight. I still keep the quote “We accept the love we think we deserve” hanging above my bed. I deserve friends who treat me well. I deserve a relationship with a person I feel comfortable with. I deserve a therapist to help me take care of my mental health.
I’ve read this book probably 40 times. I wrote part of my honors thesis on it. I think everyone should have to read this book, regardless of how old they are, because we need to remember what it’s like to feel lost. I actually don’t own a copy of this book because everytime I buy one, I give it away to someone who needs it more. At first I was upset it was going to be a movie, but now I’m thrilled because I hope it encourages more people to read it.
Brings me back to my senior year in high school. We had to make our own mixtapes and present a single song to the class. We could have any story for them, it was pretty personal. Of course, my song of choice “Spiderwebs” by No Doubt. :p
I remember reading Perks for the first time as a freshman in college, and coming across this quote:
“So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we’ll never know most of them. But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.”
Ever since I knew I was queer, I have been consumed by self-loathing, due to my homophobic high school campus, ultra-conservative parents, and religious guilt. If Perks taught me anything, it was that despite the negativity that surrounds me, I don’t have to let it get to me & I don’t have to let them hold me back. Because in the end, I am who I am, and no one can change that. I’m just gonna do me! :)
“Sam and Patrick looked at me. And I looked at them. And I think they knew. Not anything specific really. They just knew. And I think that’s all you can ever ask from a friend.”
Loved the book, but I think I might be even more in love with the movie JUST because Emma Watson.
I want a book that will keep me up all night; that I will read cover to cover; that will make me an eccentric middle-schooler with a hunger for stories again; that I will read without having a purpose to
and I think this could be that book.
Basically, I just want a book that will occupy my mind completely.
Also because I am nearing the end of my adolescence and it’ll be too late by the time I find a copy at my local Half Price Books.
Because I wish I had better friends in high school.
How about, “Sometimes I read a book, and I think I am the people in the book.”
“I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be”
I feel that, and it’s just really nice to know that I’m not the only one living with this crazy juxtaposition of feelings.
I’m excited to see the film because it just generally looks like a damn good film. The kind where as you’re watching it you start writing your own story in your head (or is that just me?).
Favorite quote: “It’s just that I don’t want to be somebody’s crush. If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don’t want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it too.”
“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.”
This is the first time I’ve ever commented on Autostraddle! “Perks of Being a Wallflower” is just that important to me! It made me stop being an internet wallflower!
Perks is one of the two books I bring with me to college – the second is “Realm of Possibility” by David Levithan, which is also glorious. It treat it the way the family in “Running with Scissors” treats the Bible; I flip open to certain pages, and lo and behold, there is the answer to my momentary crisis. To continue the Biblical analogies, I wish I could leave copies of Perks everywhere, the way they do with Bibles in hotel rooms. So I think you should give the copies of Perks to someone who’s never read it! I want other people to be both happy and sad!
to me, charlie is still a dear friend, and i will always be in love with sam.
this book embodies everything i felt about leaving childhood behind and trying to understand what it means to grow up.
navigating through the innocence, and ignorance of youth to the adventure, heartache, loneliness and love that comes with adolescence is something we could all use an extra friend for.
here is my favorite quote:
[i walked over to the hill where we used to go and sled. there were a lot of little kids there. i watched them flying. doing jumps and having races. and I thought that all those little kids are going to grow up someday. and all of those little kids are going to do the things that we do. and they will all kiss someone someday. but for now, sledding is enough.
i think it would be great if sledding were always enough, but it isn’t.]
p. 74
Hansen.
I’ve never read this and I feel like I should because your high school experience sounds like mine, and I think this would help my awkward.
But also, I just met you and this is crazy, but I have feelings, so read books maybe?
(miss you guys)
OMG. You’ve officially made me want to read a book after the last one I read more than a year ago… I just reserved it at the bookstore!!!!
I have all the feels for this book. Just read it for the first time last year. My best friend at the time (now my girlfriend) lent it to me. She was going to get “We accept the love we think we deserve” tattooed on her wrists, so I was very interested to know where the quote came from. I absolutely loved it. By itself, it is an amazingly wonderful book. But, there was also something really special about reading her copy and seeing all the starred and underlined passages she’d left. It was not long after I read it and gave it back that we had all of the life talks and ended up realizing we were both very much gay and very much in love with each other. So, while the book wasn’t really a catalyst for this wonderful change in my life, it reminds me of that new, scary, exciting, happy time.
I’m excited for this movie because it’s going to reconnect a group of my friends that doesn’t get together as a whole very often. My sophomore year of high school, most of my good friends were juniors, and we passed around one copy of Perks that year. We filled the margins with doodles and notes; we cried and laughed with one another and Charlie & Sam & Patrick; we became infinite together. We’re all planning on seeing the movie together.
My favorite quote is “Please believe that things are good with me, and even when they’re not, they will be soon enough. And I will always believe the same thing about you.”
“And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.”
I imagine myself in in the back of that truck with my arms out wide driving full-speed through the harbor tunnel at midnight. And the moment I come out on the other side. That’s the moment of feeling infinite.
This book came out when I was 17 years old and I remember people telling me it was really good but I was too busy being a queer kid trying to survive in Oklahoma where I’d just moved to and was renting every even remotely queer-themed movie from the Blockbuster down the street where the clerk started stalking me for a little while but eventually my new friends helped me scare him off and I guess I just never got around to actually reading it.
Also I’m just old enough now that I’m starting to have “whoa that’s eerie” moments about people thinking music from the early ’90s is classic/retro/old. Because yeah that soundtrack looks damn good/I have lots of those on tape. :)
Emma Watson.
Outweighs all combined book quotes.
Hi – School librarian here. I was about 1/3 of the way through this book when my car got broken into and my purse with this book were taken. Also, I’m excited about the movie because kids are more likely to read movie tie-ins and, hopefully after they fall in love with this book, they will pick up another book and then another. It just takes one book – the right book – to get you to fall in love with reading and this could be that book for at least one of my kids. Plus, I’d like to finish the damn thing, too. So, pick me, pretty please?
+ But because things change. And friends leave. And life doesn’t stop for anybody.
+ And I guess I realized at that moment that I really did love her. Because there was nothing to gain, and that didn’t matter.
I’m excited for the film. Perks was given to me by my now partner on my twenty-first birthday, the night we decided to stop effing around and be together, already. We’re going to go see it together and make out in the back row probably.
You’re right, everyone has a story about the first time they read it. I remember sitting in my back garden while I was finishing the last pages. I wasn’t trying to savour and drag out the end as long as possible, like I normally do with books I like — I was trying to finish it as quickly as I could so I could give it to my little brother. He was sitting smoking with me, about to go to hospital for his first cancer treatment. I wanted him to have something to read so he wouldn’t be alone.
He put out his cigarette and left when I was on the last page, saying he couldn’t wait any longer. I finished the book and had a little cry.
He’s fine by the way! And he gave me Perks last Christmas so this whole emotional experience obviously didn’t resonate with him at all. Oh well.
I had never even heard of this book until I saw it on an Autostraddle book list. I guess it comes from a much more US-centric background but I’d like to read it and feel all the things that everyone here related to and hope that it helps me make sense of my story so far. I want to feel happy and sad and I want to be okay with it!
I really enjoyed the book, and I loved the poem in it.
“He gave himself an A and a slash on each damn wrist / He hung it on the bathroom door because this time he didn’t think he could reach the kitchen”
So beautifully macabre, both the poem itself and Charlie’s eventual understanding of it.
“i guess we are who we are for alot of reason. and maybe we’ll never know most of them but even if we dont have the power to choose where we come from we can still choose where we go from here”
“Maybe it’s good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think that the only perspective is to really be there. Like Sam said. Because it’s okay to feel things. And be who you are about them.”
I’m still trying to follow this advice from Charlie…
“Love always, Charlie”
I wish I’d thought of identifying as a wallflower in junior high/high school. It sounds so much better than the words I’d used for myself like “loner” or “loser”. I mean, even if you’re on the sidelines, you’re still a flower. I like that.
I would like to have this book so I can go back in time and give it to my younger self. And maybe also a time machine would be nice.
“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.”
This perfectly describes so much of my life and, to be honest, the moment I finished reading the book. I have recommended this book to so many people. I am so excited for the film. I was really worried at first when I heard they were making a movie, but when I found out Stephen Chbosky was writing the screenplay and directing, I knew it would be fantastic.
“Then, I turned around and walked to my room and closed my door and put my head under the pillow and let the quiet things put things where they are supposed to be.”
” It’s just that sometimes people use thought to not participate in life.”
Ah yes. I can relate so much to this as an introvert, it’s crazy.
“CHARLIE IN A FEATHER BOA!!”
I’m thinking about you that way.
I haven’t read the book yet, but the trailer looks great.
“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
I’m SO excited! This is my FAVORITE book!
The first time I read Perks was when I had my wisdom teeth taken out. I was 15 years old and I had no real friends to speak of. My super cool boyfriend had dumped me and so had all his friends. The only friends I had left were all “drug friends.” The only visit I got during my week of bed rest was from a guy buying pills off of me. Okay, my old friend came by and gave me construction paper and another friend came by and kissed me even though my face was puffy. But no one who I thought was my current friend came by. Any ways, Perks helped me through a lot. Now I sound like a whiner. Goodbye.
…because I used to be a Craig, and now I see the other side. To gain introspection, respect, and become a well of sensitivity after a decade and a half of being a jerk, well, I feel like the winner already–and oddly vulnerable.
That, and I hope that Charlie takes his advice to become a DJ. That was probably the only good thing Craig did the entire time. (But I promise I’m not Craig anymore.)
Done:
Asleep by the Smiths
Vapour Trail by Ride
Scarborough Fair by Simon & Garfunkel
A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum
Dear Prudence by the Beatles
Gypsy by Suzanne Vega
Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues
Daydream by Smashing Pumpkins
Dusk by Genesis (before Phil Collins was even in the band!)
MLK by U2
Blackbird by the Beatles
Landslide by Fleetwood Mac
Asleep by the Smiths (again!)
Charlie’s mixtape