Review: Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky

Author: Stephen Chbosky
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Publication Date: October 2019

Christopher is seven years old. Christopher is the new kid in town. Christopher has an imaginary friend.

Single mother Kate Reese is on the run. Determined to improve life for her and her son, Christopher, she flees an abusive relationship in the middle of the night with Christopher at her side. Together, they find themselves drawn to the tight-knit community of Mill Grove, Pennsylvania. It's as far off the beaten track as they can get. Just one highway in, one highway out.

At first, it seems like the perfect place to finally settle down. Then Christopher vanishes. For six awful days, no one can find him. Until Christopher emerges from the woods at the edge of town, unharmed but not unchanged. He returns with a voice in his head only he can hear, with a mission only he can complete: Build a tree house in the woods by Christmas, or his mother and everyone in the town will never be the same again.

Soon Kate and Christopher find themselves in the fight of their lives, caught in the middle of a war playing out between good and evil, with their small town as the battleground.

I really wanted to love Imaginary Friend.  After reading the synopsis, I was expecting a scary read.  Instead, I got a strange, not completely clear, religious diatribe about the devil, angels and possibly the virgin Mary (?).  I'm not sure.  I mean I think the author was going for a good vs. evil theme.  However, it really failed to produce.  The book was way too long.  There were too many perspectives.    Don't get me wrong, the book started out great.  Very creepy and I wanted to know more.  But somewhere about the midway point, it lost momentum. 

I also want to comment on the age of the main character, Christopher, and his friends.  I really wish that authors would be more accurate with children's ages and behaviors.  There is no way a seven year old would be able to get away with or do the things that these kids did throughout this entire book.   There is a scene where the parents drop their second graders off at a hill for sledding and then leave them there for the day with no adult supervision.  What parents do that?  They all talked more like they were in middle school. Even right down to the way the two "mean" kids in their class acted.  Their insults were too mature for seven.  I probably would have bought into it more had they been in middle school. 

I'm not sure I would really recommend this one.  The synopsis really didn't prepare me for all of the religious symbolism.  Not that I am opposed to it, I just wasn't really sure what the author's goal was with the book.

Banned Books Week: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

by:  Stephen Chbosky
published by:  MTv Books
publish date:  1999

Charlie is a freshman. And while he's not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. He's a wallflower--shy and introspective, and intelligent beyond his years, if not very savvy in the social arts. We learn about Charlie through the letters he writes to someone of undisclosed name, age, and gender, a stylistic technique that adds to the heart-wrenching earnestness saturating this teen's story. Charlie encounters the same struggles that many kids face in high school--how to make friends, the intensity of a crush, family tensions, a first relationship, exploring sexuality, experimenting with drugs--but he must also deal with his best friend's recent suicide. Charlie's letters take on the intimate feel of a journal as he shares his day-to-day thoughts and feelings.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower was a complete surprise for me.  I knew nothing about it when I started reading it other than it was being made into a movie with Emma Roberts and that it was written as a series of letters.  Oh, and that it shows up on the ALA frequently challenged books lists in the last decade.

Reasons for banning: drugs, homosexuality, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, suicide, and unsuited to age group.

So yeah, all that stuff does show up in the book.  I'm assuming this book would be geared towards high school aged people.  To say it's unsuited to the age group is a little silly.  If you don't think kids in high school don't know what all that stuff is, try watching a PG-13 movie once in awhile.   Talk about unsuited to the age group.  Different soap box!

I found this book to be very intriguing.  I read the entire thing in one sitting.  I enjoyed Charlie, but I can't say I understood everything that was going on.  I didn't understand the idea of writing to someone he didn't know.  I thought the relationship between Michael and Charlie could have been described better.  He didn't really seem like a close friend, but maybe I should have read more into what was actually there.

In the little "About the Author" blurb I found it interesting that Stephen Chbosky was involved with the television show Jericho.  I loved that show when it was on.   He also wrote the screenplay for the upcoming movie of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I'm very curious to see how the issues of drugs and homosexuality are going to be dealt with in the movie and what the rating will end up being.