During this past year I have had many great experiences. 2013 has brought me joy, excitement, friendship and many other positive points. It has also brought me the flip side. I have dealt with immense grief, great loss, frustration, and at many times I found myself melancholy for reasons I can not explain. In the year I also read many wonderful books some dealing with issues I was dealing with, others standing out to me in different ways. One book that I connected with made it the best book in 2013 and that book is The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.
In The Perks of Being a Wallflower many dark themes were dealt with and there were many lessons to be learned. One of theses lessons taught readers how or more nearly how not to deal with sadness in your life. The main character Charlie was dealing with many issues from his past including death and abuse and now had lost the only friends he had. Charlie attempts suicide and is then put in a mental hospital. This was the end of the book and it really showed how an issue that starts off small can continue to grow as more of these small issues pile up on top of it. I keep this strong lesson in mind at all times. Another lesson Chbosky taught his readers were the dangers of alcohol, but also how it is not always fatal. Throughout the book Charlie's friends are drinking like it doesn't matter at all and he begins to follow suit. At one particular party, Charlie gets very drunk and is brought to the hospital due to minor alcohol poisoning. Although his friends drank throughout the whole book and it was not shown to be bad, Chbosky does show the dark, evil side of alcohol in these scenes. These two lessons from The Perks of Being a Wallflower have taught me about what I have been dealing with in the year of 2013. Although I have not been drinking alcohol, the understanding of these things really helps me going into my teenage years. I can relate closely to Charlie in the subject of death and that has helped me.
In the year of 2013, I starting reading books dealing with darker issues to learn more about the world and The Perks of Being a Wallflower just happened to be the best one of these. It combined the bad and the good of issues usually looked at as black or white and nothing in between. It showed me how to break through the invisible wall of my emotions and take on the positive side when all is said is done. These reasons are why I will never forget this book.
I read Perks of Being a Wallflower this year too, and it deeply affected how I view death and loss. It was a watershed moment for me because up until then I had never enjoyed or thought as deeply about young adult novels as much as adult books but Perks changed all that.
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