The Perks Of Being A Wallflower Essay

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Recently, Hempstead High School has decided to use the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower as required reading for their senior English class. It’s an intriguing book with many lessons to be learned from it, and it’s written in such a style that teenagers have an easy time connecting with. However, about thirteen parents have complained of the book’s “obscene nature,” specifically the fact that the characters have sex, use drugs, and drink alcohol. These people are asking the Dubuque School Board to ban the book from required reading use. There are many others who are in support of the book being used in the classroom as well, pointing out how these actions are merely a way to make the characters more realistic, and the book points out how the use of drugs and alcohol are bad ways to cope with your problems. I believe that The Perks of Being a Wallflower should not be banned from …show more content…

It’s the story of kids battling mental health problems and sexual assault and using the methods of drug and alcohol use to cope. The author, Stephen Chbosky, emphasizes that the message is one saying that there are many better ways to deal with stress than substance abuse. It becomes overwhelmingly clear that the parents who are complaining about this book did not actually read the text. If they had, they would have realized that these controversial topics are present to give a deeper meaning- not one that supports these behaviors, and not one that tells the readers that it’s okay to act that way- but that you can come back from mistakes you might have made. Those “graphic sex scenes” are not glorified, but made to be horrifying. They are ones of sexual assault, a real problem that young people are faced with in today’s society. Banning this book isn’t just banning a few detailed scenes of unpleasant things, it’s banning a moral that teenagers would greatly benefit

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