Unanswered Questions

Sometimes, even when you finish a book, there is still one last thing left unanswered.  The big question of the book, the thing you thought you would know by the last page, but then never find out.  This is exactly what happened to me when I read the book, "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," by Stephen Chbosky.  

This book is composed of many letters from a boy, Charlie.  But the thing is, you don't know who the letters are for.  They all begin the same way: "Dear friend".  But Charlie never tells us who this "friend" is.  In the beginning and end of the book, though, Charlie tells us a little bit about this person that he is writing to.  The first lines of the book say,

"Dear friend,

I am writing to you because she said you listen and understand and didn't try to sleep with that person at that party even though you could have.  Please don't try to figure out who she is because then you might figure out who I am, and I really don't want you to do that.  I will call people by different names or generic names because I don't want you to find me.  I didn't enclose a return address for the same reason.  I mean nothing bad by this.  Honest."

Also, in the end of the book, Charlie continues to talk about how the person he is writing to should never know who he is.  Charlie talks about how he has never met this person, but knows that he will listen.  He says that after his best friend shot himself, he heard a girl in his class talking about a person.  That person is who Charlie writes his letters to.

Besides these, the book doesn't give us clues on to who this person is.  It is someone Charlie doesn't know, maybe a therapist or something.   But I think the author didn't want us to know who the recipient of the letters is.  Maybe because it adds a little bit of mystery the book wouldn't otherwise have.  But, for whatever reason, this book left me thinking about this even after I read the very last sentence.