Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Perks of No Longer Being a Teenager

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

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Oh, this book. I treated it like a sacred text back in high school. I gave it regular re-reads through the beginning of college, but then I let it fade into the background. It used to be my “Fall” book (despite it covering an entire school year) and while I continued to think back on fondly, I started to replace that nostalgia drip with the character-created playlists from within the book. It’s been years since I last picked it up, but Ride’s “Vapour Trail” creeps […]

The more books I read about high school, I feel like mine was weirdly not weird

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, read by Noah Galvin

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This is not what I thought it was going to be.  I mean, I didn’t look into it too much when I picked up the audiobook, but one of my coworkers said it was her favorite book, so I decided to give it a shot.  I think I thought it was going to be a high school story from the perspective of a quiet kid on the sidelines.  I mean, it kind of is, but it’s a lot more than that.   The book is […]

Unfortunately this Imaginary Friend just wouldn’t go away

Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky

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Christopher and his single-mother are starting over in a town. Christopher must savE the worlD. He’ll need all thE helP he Can geT. FrOm hiS friendS. From his moM. And from his new imaginarY frienD. The Nice Man. Over 900 pages of this book were written like that: short, declarative sentences; fragments; strange, unnecessary capitalization; breaks in the sentence and paragraph. It’s all very Chbosky. At first, the style choices work. The breaks and short sentences create a tone and a mood that leave the […]

…when we were infinite.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

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CBR11 BINGO: Banned Books This is a frequent flyer on the Office for Intellectual Freedom Top 10 Most Challenged Books list (2004, 2006-2009, 2013, 2014). The tragedy is that the books that often speak frankly and clearly about real issues of growing up and learning how to navigate in the world are frequently found so threatening. It’s as if the books are instructional manuals for bad behavior rather than stories that can offer hope, validation and solace. “Charlie” begins writing a series of letters to […]

I didn’t see what the Perks were

The Perks Of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

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Bingo Square: Banned Books (https://www.marshall.edu/library/bannedbooks/books/perks.asp)- this book was banned in 2017 in the school district I attended as a kid, and that my mom taught in until recently. It was deemed offensive due to its ‘explicit sexual references’ which were called “disgusting”. It was specifically banned in a middle school after it was assigned by a substitute teacher for a 7-th grade advanced language arts class. I have to say that while I think banning books is a ridiculous thing, I don’t think this book […]

Love Always, Charlie

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You know how some weeks you need a breath of fresh air? Some weeks you need tried and true recycled air. “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.” Perks of Being a Wallflower is very special to me. Sure it’s a bit schmaltzy it places and a bit “get off my lawn” in others but overall this book is always a safe space where […]



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