Started reading The Perks Of Being A Wallflower the other day at lunch. Finished it before bedtime, and no, I wasn't reading non-stop and ignoring everything else. Sort of what one would expect for a book published by MTV.

The story was surprisingly good. Very evocative and honest. Charlie is awkward, introverted, bookish, and friends with a group of outsiders: punks, gays, and potheads - people who are portrayed as being honest with themselves about who they are and where they want to be.

The part I didn't like was the revelation that Charlie did indeed have "something wrong with him" and didn't just feel that way. I spent a good part of my high-school years feeling something was wrong with me, and I don't have some childhood trauma to blame it on. The discovery of Charlie's long repressed memories of the sexual abuse he endured as a child, although a horrible thing, somehow cheapened the story. As if it's impossible to be awkward, introverted, bookish and an outsider and come by it naturally.