The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I spent my weekend devouring Stephen Chbosky's book in two sittings. I was initially compelled to pick up The Perks of Being a Wallflower based solely on seeing it listed among people's "favorite books" in their (blog and other) profiles. Having read it so fast, my thoughts on it are swimming in my mind. I don't think that I'm ready to formulate any kind of comprehensive review of it yet, or even to just share what I generally thought of it...

(I actually think this ultimately bodes well for the book because clearly it's complex enough that I can't just simply summarize it here in a sentence, and instead need to spend time digesting it. In addition, it's interesting enough to have captured my attentions and energies to take the time to think about it.)

In the mean time, however, I did want to offer this quotation I found striking:

It's great that you can listen and be a shoulder to someone, but what about when someone doesn't need a shoulder. What if they need the arms or something like that? You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things.

(Stephen Chbosky The Perks of Being a Wallflower p.200)