I know this is a book that means a lot to a lot of people but it just didn't do much for me. The characters were fine, I guess, but honestly, I found Charlie somewhat infuriating. The fact that he relentlessly had no intention in his life, and just kind of let things happen to him was really frustrating for me, but that wouldn't, on its own, have made me dislike the book. The book itself doesn't like that about Charlie, so that was presumably one of Chbosky's points.

More importantly, I thought this book felt pretentious, as if Chbosky himself was trying to be the reader's cool English teacher who imparts you with ~life lessons~ and assigns you fun out of class readings. It was this that really made me dislike the book.

Just not for me, I guess.

I'm...so torn about this because on the one hand, every single plot twist in this book was painfully obvious, but on the other hand, dramatic irony is literally my favorite thing ever so that actually made it fairly fun?

Overall, I thought this was a super quick but enjoyable read. The pacing of the story felt a little odd and the narrative jumped from scene to scene a little sporadically for my taste, but all in all, I felt like this was a good, empowering story with lovely art.

I mean. Yeah. This book was slow. But I was Captivated. I do genuinely understand why some people really don’t like this book but I loved it - it was atmospheric and beautiful and we stan.