“I chose the [letter] format because I thought it was the most intimate way to talk directly to the reader,” defined Chbosky in a 2012 interview. “I didn’t want it to read like a book, so much as an honest one-on-one conversation between myself and the reader or in this case, Charlie.”
The e book celebrates its twenty fifth anniversary this month. For millennials particularly, The Perks of Being a Wallflower served as a vital cultural touchstone. Many report the e book helped save their lives as they wrestled with the difficulties of rising up and straddling the road between a pre-technology age and a world quickly leaning into digital development.
Published by MTV Books in 1999, Perks is Chbosky’s debut novel. The story is loosely autobiographical, as parts from it—notably these round love and self-love—emerged from the creator’s personal experiences following a troublesome breakup.
“When I was in my mid-20s I went through a bad break up and I was in a bad place in my life. I think I needed something to give myself some hope in that moment, and Charlie really came out of that need and out of the question of why good people let themselves get treated so badly,” stated Chbosky in a 2012 interview with Complex. “And at the end of writing the book, I was in a much better place.”
The Perks of Being a Wallflower rapidly grew to become MTV Books’s bestselling title. One hundred thousand copies have been in print by October of 2000, only a yr and a half after launch. By 2012, 1.5 million copies of the e book had been offered, with translations of the e book out there in 31 languages throughout many international locations. At the time of the e book’s publication, no bestsellers record existed to quantify gross sales of younger grownup books. That wouldn’t occur till 2012’s New York Times Young Adult Bestsellers record. The timing with the discharge of the movie that very same yr helped put the title on the Children’s bestseller record in mid-2012 earlier than it moved onto the YA record. It would proceed to maneuver on and off the record for dozens of weeks over the subsequent a number of years. The Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association (ALA) named the e book considered one of its fashionable paperback picks in 2014. The e book remains to be in print right this moment.
The movie adaptation starring Logan Lerman as Charlie, alongside Emma Watson as Sam and Ezra Miller as Patrick, launched in 2012 and was each written and directed by Chbosky. It not solely garnered favorable opinions, it additionally launched throughout the top of YA adaptation fever. The Hunger Games launched in 2012, as did the ultimate installment of the Twilight collection, Breaking Dawn—Part 2. Perks earned $33 million worldwide in opposition to its filming funds of $13 million. But the movie was over a decade within the making.
“My thing has been from day one, I’ve had, at this point, probably a hundred offers on people to buy the book and make it a movie or TV show and I’ve turned them all down because I really wanted to do it right. It was very important to me,” stated Chbosky.
Since its publication, the e book has been a goal of e book banners. Among the complaints waged in opposition to the e book are its themes of homosexuality, sexual content material and violence, masturbation, drug and alcohol use, suicide, and offensive language. Those are, in fact, the very subjects within the e book which make it resonate with its younger readers.
Perks obtained its first ban in 2002 in Fairfax, Virginia, elementary and secondary colleges. A group calling themselves “Parents Against Banned Books” focused the title together with 10 others and efficiently acquired it eliminated. Montgomery County Memorial Library System in Texas noticed the e book challenged a yr later, with the complaints rising from a gaggle known as “Library Patrons of Texas.” Like right this moment’s spate of e book bans, the explanations offered by the group on their web site have been almost equivalent to these lodged in Fairfax the earlier yr. It was faraway from Massapequa High School (NY) as an non-obligatory studying textual content that yr after which retained following a problem at Arrowhead High School in Wisconsin. “Parents Protecting the Minds of Children” in Arkansas included it among the many 54 books it sought to take away as nicely.
“There’s a part of the book, where Charlie—when he’s 12 years old—witnesses a date rape. If you take part of that section out of context, it seems like a very graphic account. Every time it’s taken in front of a school board, they always cut a section where Charlie says he’s going to be sick and hides his head in the pillow. It’s not supposed to be titillating at all, but these parents take it out of context to make their case better,” Chbosky instructed Wordriot about these first e book bans. He famous that he not often heard about challenges or bans previous to their implementation however, within the case of Arrowhead High School, was capable of attain out to the board immediately.
The e book has been on the ALA’s prime 10 most banned or challenged e book lists in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2013, 2014, and 2022, and between 2000 and 2009, it was the tenth most banned e book in America. In the subsequent ten years, 2010-2019, it will turn out to be the 14th most banned title.
In 2022, it remained the fifth most challenged e book, tied with John Green’s Looking for Alaska. PEN America reported that Perks was banned in 25 faculty districts throughout the 2022-2023 faculty yr.
This notoriety for the novel, although, has by no means been a supply of pleasure for Chbosky.
“I didn’t write it to be challenged. I didn’t write it to be a controversial book. I can’t really take it as a point of pride because it was banned someplace. The first time it happened, it was… well, exciting isn’t the right word, but I thought, ‘Wow, it’s getting all this attention.’ And I did think it was kind of exciting, that it was being talked about that way. But after a time, you start to realize that the argument is always the same. I no longer find the argument exciting, and it’s certainly not a matter of pride,” he stated.
Chbosky didn’t launch his subsequent novel till 2019. The e book, Imaginary Friend, is an grownup horror title; it instantly hit the bestseller record upon publication. In between books, he has been actively concerned within the leisure and literary industries. He wrote the movie adaptation of Rent in 2005, wrote and produced two dozen episodes for the tv collection Jericho, and wrote the screenplay each for the movie adaptation of 2017’s Beauty and the Beast and Wonder. In 2021, he labored on the movie adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen.
On the twenty fifth anniversary of Perks, Chbosky shared on social media that he was not solely lucky sufficient to publish the e book but additionally that it was because of readers’ ardour for the e book that it stays fashionable and beloved.
That was met with dozens of readers responding with how important the book was to them, in addition to to younger readers all over the place—even these whose mother and father could have picked up the e book after they themselves have been youngsters:
- “the book that made me decide to be a writer! and i did it!”
- “The book that made me a reader!”
- “Still one of my favorite books ever. I’ll never forget the first time I read it.”
- “I literally am who I am because of this story. Thank you for writing it and releasing it”
- “I was literally 1 when this book came out, still 13 years later when I read it, it changed me”
- “Literally saved my life <3”
While there is no such thing as a phrase on a future e book for Chbosky but, the legacy and perception provided by him and The Perks of Being a Wallflower is simple.
“If we didn’t talk about sex and we didn’t talk about drugs, and all these other things that impact teenagers’ lives, literature would still reach teenagers. But the ones having problems in these areas would be totally left in the dark, and would unfortunately be more ignorant,” stated Chbosky.
“The more you talk about it, the more you take away its power and its mystery, and people can make much more informed and mature decisions about these things.”
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