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My Rating: 5 stars

We don’t know where he’s from, we don’t know his real name and we don’t who he is writing to, but we know his whole life. A teenage boy under the alias of “Charlie” is writing letters to a “friend” who he knows will listen to his problems. He talks about life as a teenager and what he does to deal with it. He talks about his friends and family and doesn’t tell us their real names or where they live. Charlie talks about his past and what made him who he is today. Charlie’s letters are more intimate than a diary and each letter is unique. He is caught between living his life and running from it. Through Charlie, we learn that ‘all you need is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite’.
I’ve heard a lot of good things about this book so I finally decided to read it, and I’m really glad I did. It’s not what I expected though. I didn’t expect the whole letter format, but I ended up liking it a lot and might try writing a story that way. I thought Charlie seemed a little immature at first, but it kind of makes sense at the end why he acts the way he does. It still bothers me that it really is never revealed who Charlie is writing his letters to. He always just writes “dear friend” at the beginning of each letter. Though, overall, this book was very interesting and very hard to put down and very inspirational.

Also, I’m pretty sure this is going to be a movie sometime soon!