The Perks of Being a Wallflower

This book left me feeling less than infinite. I did not like this book. In fact, I could rant about it for an hour, but I want to keep this short, (and attempt not to rant). (Spoilers, I end up ranting. Also minor spoilers for the book, not anything that will ruin it if you still want to read it. But if you're really spoiler sensitive don't read this.)

First I'll talk about the writing and plot, which was painfully slow and dreadfully boring. I can't give an accurate description of the plot, because nothing really happened. This book is written in the form of letters to Charlie's anonymous friend. Who has a tendency to rant about things that serve no purpose to the story and are never brought up again, like a random scientific experiment he found out about involving rats running through a maze to get food or drugs while being electrocuted. He explains that the rats would withstand a higher voltage for the drugs as opposed to the food. The point of this? I can't you, because it was never brought up again.

Or this quote from page 85: “When I was little I called them ‘Candy Grandma' and ‘Cookies Grandma.' I also used to call pizza crust ‘pizza bones.' I don't know why I'm telling you this.” Neither do I Charlie. It's doesn't contribute to the story, and it's not funny either. The first thing you learn in any writing class is “Omit needless words.”

The characters (most of them are in high school by the way) regularly smoke, drink and use drugs. It was like the author included this to be “dark” and “edgy”. But it comes across as unrealistic and cringy. Not to mention all the characters are thinner than the paper they were printed on. Including the gay character, who is only there to tick off the diversity box and add drama to the “plot”.

You think all that is bad? I haven't even mentioned all the sexual and physical assault towards women in this. It's horrendous, 90% of the women have been abused in some way. I'm not saying that we can't have stories that include abuse and rape, because it's necessary to talk about that because it affects many people worldwide. But, NINETY FUCKING PERCENT???

Now if you've read this and are shaking your head at me cause “it couldn't possibly be 90% of the female characters” I've made this handy dandy little chart:
Women Confirmed to Have Been Abused-
Charlie's Sister- Slapped by boyfriend.
Charlie's Mother-Abused by her father.
Aunt Helen (Charlie's Mother's Side)-Abused by her father, and molested by a family friend.
Unnamed Girl At a House Party-Raped by a boy in Charlie's room.
Aunt Rebecca (Charlie's Father's Side)-Abused by step-father, and romantic partners.

Unconfirmed- (Not explicitly stated but suggested.)
Charlie's Grandmother (Father's Side)-Likely abused by second husband.
Sam-Possibly Sexually Assaulted based on this quote: Sam: “You can always say no (to sex).”
Charlie: “Does that work?” Sam: “Sometimes.”

Now there was another girl in this story who I can't remember the name of (like I said, paper thin and forgettable.) The girl who dated Charlie at one point and was really annoying. Which brings our totals to 87% (7 out of 8) of women in this story were probably abused, and 62% (5 out of 8) who were definitely abused. Which is double the average of women who report being abused by a romantic partner at some point in their lives. (Accourding to Statistics NCADV, https://ncadv.org/statistics who say it's about 33% or 1 in 3)

Also, this book made me do MATH to find out the statistics of HOW MANY WOMEN ARE ABUSED IN THE STORY. So fuck this book.