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The Perks of Being a Wallflower Summary 58818 Views


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Description:

So what are the perks of being a wallflower? Seriously—we're asking.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a la Shmoop. My name is Charlie, and I’m what you’d

00:11

call a…

00:12

….professional people watcher.

00:16

Some people think I’m cool, but I don’t know why, since I mostly just sit back and

00:20

observe.

00:21

Honestly, high school is scary. Well, it’s not all bad. I do have two whole

00:28

friends and a really cool English teacher who gives me lots of extra books to read on

00:32

the side…

00:33

…so I guess he’s my friend, too.

00:36

Ok, I know being assigned more homework doesn’t sound all that nice…

00:40

…but I’m the kind of guy who likes to sit back and watch other people’s lives

00:45

happen…

00:45

…and books are the perfect way of doing that. People in books can’t get creeped

00:49

out when you keep staring at them from the corner of the room.

00:54

My two friends who aren’t middle-aged English teachers are Patrick and Sam.

00:58

Patrick is awesome. He’s also gay… which I found out is a really hard thing to be in

01:03

high school.

01:05

Even Patrick’s boyfriend hated him for it.

01:09

And Sam is…Sam is…

01:11

…ahem. Well, she’s just this girl.

01:13

WHOM I LOVE SO MUCH I MIGHT CRY.

01:16

Okay… I… did cry. A few times. At first when I told her I had a crush on

01:22

her she said I was too young, but she was really, really nice about it.

01:26

She was always so nice and pretty and loving and kind and…

01:31

…“with boyfriend.”

01:33

So Patrick tried to help me find another girl. I got to go to a bunch of parties and one

01:38

time, everyone even did a toast to me.

01:41

Which I don’t even get, ‘cause all I did at those parties was watch other people make

01:47

out a lot. Then it turned out that there was this girl,

01:52

Mary Elizabeth, at those parties…and she wanted to make out …with me. We even went

01:58

out.

01:58

Me. I went out. With a real girl. A nice one, too.

02:04

Except then at a party I got dared to kiss the prettiest girl in the room and I didn’t

02:09

kiss Mary Elizabeth.

02:10

You can guess who I kissed.

02:12

And then I had two girls who were very, very mad at me.

02:16

I think as a guy I’m supposed to get used to that.

02:20

So then I decided to get a different kind of girlfriend…

02:24

…well, she was small and green and her first name was Mary and her middle name wasn’t

02:29

Elizabeth…

02:29

She was nice I guess but I never liked her as much as Sam.

02:34

Eventually, Sam stopped being mad at me and she and her boyfriend got into a big fight

02:38

at one of the last parties of the year.

02:41

I was so “in.”

02:43

Except when Sam and I were kissing something felt weird, like there was a memory haunting

02:47

my body that I couldn’t recall until someone pressed against it…

02:52

…my aunt Helen. She was my favorite aunt. She had a really tough life and died in a

02:57

car accident.

02:59

She used to let me watch TV with her.

03:04

Well, and I guess she did something else to me.

03:07

…and I’m still trying to figure out how to deal with that.

03:13

And that’s how, freshman year of high school, I ended up not only watching people and reading

03:18

a bunch of books, but also…

03:20

…falling in love, breaking someone’s heart, keeping someone’s sexuality secret, getting

03:24

drunk, becoming a total pothead, making out with a girl I really liked, and ending up

03:29

in the hospital.

03:32

Hey, not too bad for a wallflower.

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