Being A Wallflower

The Perks of Connecting to a Character

According to Nabokov, good readers use an impersonal imagination to read a novel. They should not connect with a character as that could cause bias and cause them to miss out on an author's point in the novel. This is what we have talked about all year, and I believe this to be one hundred percent nonsense. One can enjoy a book without connecting with the main character, but many times it is the author's intention for you to not only sympathize, but empathize with the character. The books that make you think and feel something, those books that we learned to refer to as spine tinglers, those books that stay with you, wandering around in your mind are the ones where you feel a connection to a character, and relate and learn from them. …show more content…
The novel follows Charlie, an incoming freshman dealing with anxiety and depression, who has to navigate high school, extensive family problems and make new friends because his only friend from before had just committed suicide. This coming of age novel has a very specific audience- teenagers. Even more specifically it’s for the ones such as myself who were dealing with anxiety, depression or who are to steal a term from the novel ‘wallflowers’. An adult can read and probably enjoy the story of this novel, but it’s not the same experience as a teenager reading it and putting themselves in Charlie’s