a very perky post

I finished reading the perks of being a wallflower inside this coffee shop that used to be an old school house, from around the turn of the century....The snow had blown in and created a huge storm, and I remember looking outside Toad's Coffee House at the way the blanket of white layered the ground and the trees, the cars and the sidewalks. I was listening to Tori's Little Earthquakes, and I just cried and cried when I finished this book. Charlie--the protagonist--and I have some eerie similarites. He and I have the same birthday; we both started high school at the same time (if I've done my math correctly); and his experiences echo my own at Big Foot High School in Walworth, WI. This little beautiful book encompasses so much: death, abuse (physical, emotional, substance), coming to terms with one's sexuality, family relationships both healed and broken, friendships, the power of music, sex, and how to move from the shadows into your own skin. I'm a lucky guy: I've had the opportunity to chat with the author, Stephen Chbosky, on a few occasions, by phone and email. He's a warm, sensitive soul with a sassy edge of stark humor. Just the way I like 'em. For anyone who wants to look back at their high school memories and cultivate some meaning from them, please run-not-walk to your local bookstore and snatch up perks. It may just save your life. Isn't it wonderful how books transport us, change us? I've been lucky enough to communicate with a few writers in my day; well, okay, I've sent them letters and/or emails of thanks, and some have written back;) Kelly Braffet, author of Josie and Jack, wrote me a kick-ass letter inside a beautiful card.....plus she's engaged to Stephen King's son and her novel can be drawn deliciously to Flowers in the Attic, but for the modern day goth teen inside us all. I also recommend you read Chris Crutcher's Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, which has had a hugely powerful effect on me and stayed with me through the ages. (His authorized website is www.chriscrutcher.com.) Mr. Crutcher has been generous, and insightful, and kind in his words to me. I don't know about Ms. Braffet, but both Stephen Chbosky's and Chris Crutcher's books have been banned from schools for their content. Funny, that stuff makes me want to read a writer's work more! They're willing to take emotional risks and not talk down to teenagers and to bathe us all in sad, funny, powerful truths that ripple across all ages. Finally (and I'm sure I'll write lots on her in the future), you must all immediately read the works of Francesca Lia Block. If Tori Amos is the faerie queen of music (though some would argue she and Kate Bush might sit elegantly side-by-side), then Francesca Lia Block is the faerie queen of young adult literature. Her Weetzie Bat books spell out my soul in prose-poetry: Weetzie Bat, Witch Baby, Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys, Missing Angel Juan, Baby Be-Bop, and Necklace of Kisses. [Note: The first five books have been lovingly bound in a collection entitled Dangerous Angels. I recommend buying DA and Necklace of Kisses, then treating yourself to your favorite ice cream, a hammock, and some Lilith Fair music. Okay, I'll give in: for those who are a little more hard-edged than the Lilith Fair crowd, I'll allow you to listen to PJ Harvey.....I have many, many music suggestions. Write me and I'll give them to you. Guys. Gals. Instrumental. The works.] I feel so blessed to find my identity in all these books, to shape who I am through a sentence or paragraph that just breaks my heart in all the right ways. Reading a great book is like meeting God; we find out that we're all connected, that someone else out there has captured in words what we've felt and experienced and here we are, in that hammock, mouthing Truth upon Truth upon Truth. And that ice cream tastes really damn good, too.