"This is a love story, though now that it's over it occurs to me that it's actually four or five, perhaps more: familial and paternal love; the slow-burning, reviving love of friends; the brief, blinding explosion of first love that can only be looked at directly once it has burnt out. A single word can only carry so many meanings, and maybe there ought to be different words for something so varied and weighty. For the moment, this one word will have to bear all of the above, and married love too."
I couldn't put this book more succinctly than that. Charlie grows through this book, a dual timeline of his current day and that short, hot summer of his first love, potential felony crimes, and the inevitable growing apart of friends once school ends. He joins a play to alleviate the day in day out boredom of summer, only to attempt to gain the attention of a girl there, one who will ultimately prove to be his first love. The story is told in fits and starts from the depression of his home life to the fun of working on the play with friends he never expected, and was a decent read but not something I'd rave about. Good for one read.
I couldn't put this book more succinctly than that. Charlie grows through this book, a dual timeline of his current day and that short, hot summer of his first love, potential felony crimes, and the inevitable growing apart of friends once school ends. He joins a play to alleviate the day in day out boredom of summer, only to attempt to gain the attention of a girl there, one who will ultimately prove to be his first love. The story is told in fits and starts from the depression of his home life to the fun of working on the play with friends he never expected, and was a decent read but not something I'd rave about. Good for one read.