The first (and so far only) novel by Stephen Chbosky. It was first published in 1999. The narrator, 16-year-old Charlie, is just starting high school as a freshman, having been held back a couple of years for reasons of being in the hospital due to being emotionally damaged. The novel primarily concerns Charlie's adventures in the '91-'92 school year, and is written as an Epistolary Novel, a collection of letters Charlie is writing to a friend-of-a-friend whom he was told would be a good listener. Charlie, who doesn't excel at much except reading, seems to be off to a bad start before two seniors, step-siblings Patrick and Sam, take him under their wing. And so begins Charlie's adventures into school, literature, dating, Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll, teen pregnancy, suicide and the Rocky H