Once Writing has become your Major vice & Greatest Pleasure, only Death can Stop it. -E.H.

It is said in school if you are good in Math and Science, you are usually weak in Art and Languages and visa versa.  That is because math and science use the critical part of our brain that is logic based while art and languages use the side of our brains that are imaginative and analytical.  Well, as my blogs can attest to, I was never good in math or science.  I can learn a language in my sleep (literally), write a brilliantly coherent 20 page paper in an evening, and analyze even the smallest detail to come up with a beautiful story; I am a lit person.

Now I cannot draw even so much as a doodle to save my life, but I, if I don’t say so myself,  am an amazing writer.  I am also a great reader; it does not matter if its my work, someone else’s, music or a movie; any form of art (yes, music, movies and literature ARE art) I read, see, or hear I like to take in and see how it applies to my life.   I am an analyst.  I feel like most things, things so mundane as a song popping on your Pandora, when listened to closely can have the most profound meanings.  I also believe that sometimes books can have the most effect on you at only the right times you choose to read them.

For example, for Christmas I received a book (which I had asked for), a cult classic, The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  As every 20 something, year old living in the 90s can tell you, this book was almost as big to the world of accepting teenage angst as Catcher in the Rye was.  It was a ‘coming of age’ tale for the more modern society.  When I picked up that book 7 months ago, it took me a while to get going.  I struggled to get to page six before deeming the book ‘boring’ and banishing it back to my bookshelf and reading something else.  One thing about me, as much as I love literature, if something doesn’t captivate me, I do not waste my time; because when a book does captivate me, it is all I think about until I finishing reading it…which usually takes 2 days. 

After I finished reading another book, I was at a different place in life than I was at the beginning of the year, so I decided to give ‘Perks´ a chance.  Revisiting that book was one of the best decisions I have ever made.  I felt that I was meant to read that book at that particular junction in my life; that some Divine power or the Universe was sending me a sign that this book is now more relevant and meaningful to me in this specific moment than it could have ever been in the past. 

Yes, I am aware that it sounds CRAZY to think that I was [dare I say it? Don’t say it. Don’t say it!!! Okay. I’ll say it…] Destined to read any book at any particular moment, but it just felt right.  While there weren’t (m)any similarities between my situation and that of the protagonist, Charlie, it was still nice to know that someone else had fallen down the rabbit hole (and not the cool kind like Alice). 

Perks got a little risqué at moments, but the book, which was told from the perspective of a 15 year old high school student, was so easy to read it was almost difficult to not get encapsulated in the story.  It was like talking to a friend.  There were lines in that book that everyone can relate to, being a ‘wallflower’ at one point or another, even if just in a moment, people can relate.  The feeling of a moment in time being ‘infinite’, everything about it just seemed so real, to everyone.  While reading that book it took me to that town, that high school (even though I hated high school and rather never go through that experience again), but it took me to those moments. 

I believe a good book, regardless of subject matter, should take you to another place, it should have you so intertwined with the story that when you finish the book you are almost sad that you are losing friends.  That is what Perks of Being a Wallflower has given me.

When I found out they were making a movie about the book, I was extremely elated.  When I found out it was filled with mainstream actors and not some cheap indie film I got a little skeptical.  I did not want the purity and innocence of the book to be overshadowed by A-list celebrities and their stigmas (yes I know that makes me sound snobbish. No, I swear I am not a Hipster.) However, after seeing the trailer, I have hope for it.  Even the Harry Potter girl, Emma Watson, seemed to make a believable Sam.  While she would not have been my first choice (I pictured Sam to look a little different), I entrust that she will make the movie proud.  I understand that books and movies are usually very different and the book is almost always better (that means you, Mystic River.)  Getting to use your imagination is what makes books great, seeing movies are just one person’s interpretation of the book and that is how they sometimes fall short of the beauty of the original work of art.  But after both reading and then seeing Water for Elephants, I had hope that movies can have A-list celebrities and still stay true to the art form of the book. 

So, with that, I no longer need the cathartic effect of Perks of Being a Wallflower (although I may re-read Catcher in the Rye), but I am giddily anticipating the release of the Perks movie later this year.

Post Script----

If anyone has some good books to read, I am always open to suggestions!!