We Were Infinite: On THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

Do you remember what it was like to feel infinite? This week on Zero to Well-Read, Jeff and Rebecca crack open the millennial nostalgia time capsule that is Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower. They talk about how it has provided multiple generations of teenage outsiders with assurance that they’re not alone, why it has been a frequent target of book banning and censorship attempts, and what gives it continued resonance today.

Jeff got it right when he conjectured that I’d have all sorts of emo-related stuff for today’s companion newsletter, mostly of the musical variety. I have some interviews with Chbosky and the cast of the film adaptation, some throwback playlists (including a couple of my own), a heap of great coming-of-age reading recs, and more.

Let us be infinite!

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A Bit About Chbosky

• Stephen Chbosky was born in Pittsburgh, PA and raised in Upper St Clair, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower was inspired by his own teenage experiences there.
• He graduated from USC’s prestigious Filmic Writing Program in 1992 – another fellow Trojan!
• Though he’s best known for The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Chbosky spent most of his career working in TV and film. He is a screenwriter, television writer, and stage writer.
• Some of his notable credits include writing for the CBS show Jericho, the 2005 film Rent, and cowriting the 2017 live-action Beauty and the Beast

Out of Context Show Quotes

• “Has anyone’s life ever been made better by a teenage truth or dare or spin the bottle experience?!?”
• “Jordan Catalano: important for a lot of people.”
• “It’s emotional bumper cars out here, Rebecca. It’s Mad Max Fury Road!”
• “Like, you know, there’s a couple songs that if I play them on a day like this, I’m like wild stallions being transported back in time.”
• “…what to do with boners is also very much a question.”

The Perks of Being a Playlist

The music and mixtape element of The Perks of Being a Wallflower spoke a lot to me as someone who’s been making playlists since the days when doing so involved pressing record on a tape player while listening to the radio. Now we have all the music at our fingertips all the time, making it very easy for me to share several relevant playlists with you today.

• The Perks of Being a Wallflower official soundtrack.
  • There’s a joke that all Mexicans—and possibly just Latines ?—are obsessed with Morrissey and The Smiths, but I never fell into that stereotype. Then I read this book, discovered “Asleep” by The Smiths, and officially took up residence in the Stereotype Silo. It is still one of my favorite songs, as is “This Charming Man,” which I refer to as my “woke up today and realized I was over Jordan Catalano” song. If that reference makes sense to you, what eye cream are we loving these days?
  • I wrote the paragraph above two whole days before I heard Jeff reference My So Called Life in the episode. As soon as he said “Jordan Catalano,” I squealed and fist-pumped in a coffee shop like a weirdo.
• Charlie’s v depressing mixtape starts with “Asleep” and ends with “Landslide,” a call for a wellness check if I ever saw one. No judgies, Charlie. Been there!
• The Vemo Years – a peek into my own emo phase
  • I was inspired to make a playlist of the songs I was listening to in my high school emo years (my nickname, V, plus emo = Vemo. I know, groundbreaking). It is long and very extra because, well, have you met me? And my definition of emo here includes anything I scream-sang/rapped/slid down a wall dramatically to as a teen, and not just the actual emo rock that was a hallmark of my elder millennial youth.
• There are SO many playlists inspired by the book and/or film on Spotify. A sampling for you:
  • the tunnel scene in perks of being a wallflower – This one’s a vibe: we have a little Death Cab, some Bleachers, some Temper Trap, and also Bloc Party, The Smashing Pumpkins, Modest Mouse, the 1975, and some Fleetwood Mac for good measure.
  • This we were infinite varietal includes Vance Joy, The Lumineers, Lord Huron, The Strokes, Cage the Elephant, Olivia Rodrigo, and appropriately, The Smiths.
  • Here’s another with a mix of The Cranberries, The Killers, Maggie Rogers, Oasis, Phoenix, Kings of Leon, Del Water Gap, and more.
• Jeff mentions listening to music with his daughter in the summer, and the soul-alighting feeling of listening to a particular track on a perfect day is a high I chase frequently. Here is one of my favorite playlists, one that makes me think of picnics and barbecues at the park with people you love

An O’Neal Warning

OG Book Riot podcast listeners are familiar with O’Neal’s Razor, now we have O’Neal’s Warning. Today’s warning is one you’ve heard Jeff muse about on Zero to Well-Read before: a word of caution about the epistolary format.

Remember everyone: be careful out there when you’re getting letters or diary entries and feeling like you are closer to the character. YOU ARE NOT. You are farther from the character! And this one I think is especially seductive…”

Listen to the episode to find out why Charlie’s letters warrant that warning.

Adaptation Corner

Embarrassing confession time: I picked up The Perks of Being a Wallflower a few years after the film came out while browsing at a bookstore, when my brain conjured up this cheeky, flirty scene of Emma Watson dancing in the trailer for the film and thought, “Yeah, I’m in the mood for a romp of a read!” The problem is that the scene in my head was not the one from The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but from a very, very different A24 film called The Bling Ring directed by Sofia Coppola. Go on and look that up and imagine the utter confusion with which I read (but still enjoyed!) this book.

The actual film adaptation (which also features a dancing Watson in the trailer, but of an entirely different vibe) was written and directed by Stephen Chbosky himself, starring Emma Watson, Ezra Miller, Logan Lerman, and Paul Rudd. It’s a pretty faithful rendering and worth the watch. One bummer caveat is that Miller (aka Not Barry Keoghan), whose performance really does steal the show (I stay quoting “Be! Aggressive! Passive! Aggressive!”), is a walking YIKES these days. If you can get past that, the movie, like the book, is a wonderful portrait of adolescence.

From Infinite Friends to Imaginary Friends

Chbosky took a break from books after The Perks of Being a Wallflower—a two-decade break. Though he wrote and directed the 2012 film adaptation and continued to write for TV and film, he wouldn’t release another book for another 20 years. Imaginary Friend came out in 2019, a work of literary horror about a young boy who goes missing for six days before returning unharmed, but with a voice in his head that only he can hear. Chbosky spoke to Libro.fm to talk about the inspiration behind Imaginary Friend as well as the author’s experience with audiobooks and favorite indie bookstores.

Extra Credit

Readalikes and Such

Rebecca’s Picks:

• Stay True by Hua Hsu – A memoir about a life-changing early adulthood friendship that contains a scene that Rebecca calls a “perks of a wallflower” moment
• If This Isn’t Nice, What Is? by Kurt Vonnegut – A collection of Vonnegut’s commencement speeches with advice to young people, urging pause, reflection, and appreciation in life’s beautiful moments
• Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger – This classic, which Rebecca argues is in need of a redemption tour, captures what it is to be a teenager really well.

Jeff’s Picks:

• The larger John Green corpus, specifically Looking for Alaska
• The Edge of Seventeen – A film starring Hailee Steinfeld and Woody Harrelson – Modern, hits a lot of the same points while taking itself less seriously
• Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown – About growing up in the inner city as a Black man; a raw look at the realities of growing up in the ’40s and ’50s
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath – A classic about a young woman moving to the city and trying to make her way in the world
• Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz – a YA read about two young Latino guys in the 80s in El Paso who are growing up and figuring out their own sexuality + their relationship to each other

Vanessa’s Bonus Pick:

• Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer – Building on Jeff’s rec, this is a Bell Jar retelling of sorts that I read in my 20s and made my personality for a while
• Oye by Melissa Mogollon – This is a recent coming-of-age story that I absolutely love, and one unlike any I’ve read before. It’s a different kind of epistolary (warning! warning!): the entire book is told through one-sided phone calls of a queer Colombian American teen navigating telenovela levels of drama in the wake of a hurricane. It’s funny, dramatic, and unexpectedly tender.
• My So-Called Life: This show is a personal favorite and feels very much like a spiritual companion to Perks, as I’ve already established. The only place I could find it streaming was for purchase on Amazon Prime. The good news is it’s only one season long and you get all 19 episodes for 15 bucks. But be warned that we have another creep factor on our hands here: Jordan Catalano is played by Jared Leto. Sigh.

Supplemental Reading (and Watching/Listening)

• This interview with Chbosky and the young stars of the film is charming. My half joking/half serious hot take here is Miller’s mutton chop/man bun (man pony?) combo was a red flag.
• Stephen Chbosky discussed The Perks of Being a Wallflower on the Velshi Banned Book Club on MSNBC a couple of years ago on the eve of the book’s 25th anniversary, discussing the significance of the book’s music choices, the ’90s references, the dream of adolescence, book banning, and more.
• Chbosky is unfortunately all too familiar with efforts to ban his book, as you’ll see in this 2013 interview with the National Coalition Against Censorship. Chbosky discusses book banning and censorship and talks about all the teens who’ve reached out to say the book helped save their lives, and shares some gratitude for the incomparable Judy Blume.
• And just for funsies, here’s the clip of the “we are infinite” scene, aka the emo teen version of “I’m the king of the world.”

What tracks are going on your emo or “we were infinite” playlists? Let us know in the comments.