Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of my favorite books of all time. I love it so much that I made my husband read the book and then watch the film. He loves it just as much as I do. So when we heard about this book, we were ecstatic.

This book is his second book in twenty years. That’s a long damn time but I can attest that this was well worth the wait. It’s disturbing, magnificent, and scared the hell out of me. Do you know when you get high and then you believe that you discovered the answers to the universe? It was that spooky.

Christopher and his Mom, Kate pick up and move in the middle of the night. After her husband died, Kate has had her string of bad luck in the Gentleman department. And the only thing she cares about is the life and wellbeing of her son, Christopher. They travel to PA for a better life. They are drawn to this small town where they can be secluded enough to escape but not enough to be wiped from the face of the Earth.

Things are going great until Christopher disappears for six days without a trace. Search parties scoured the woods for days with no lead in sight. And then he emerges from the woods with no injuries but is somehow different. He hears a tiny but mighty voice in his head of the nice man, his imaginary friend. The voice tells him to build a treehouse in the middle of the woods or his Mother and the entire town will face the consequences. And let’s make this perfectly clear, they will be dire!

Christopher and his Mom are now in the fight of their lives to save themselves and the townspeople from utter destruction. Good vs Evil as the line between the real world and the imaginary one starts to crack and could ruin all of their lives forever.

Would you put your life at risk to save the town? Or would you let them crumble beneath your feet?

This book was truly bizarre. I never knew that Chbosky has this in him. Not sure what I was expecting but it wasn’t this. This was honestly scary and it made me believe that the tiny voice inside my head might be up to no good.

Imaginary Friend is not YA and definitely not a coming-of-age story. Don’t go into this thinking that it’s going to be another story that is going to change your life for the better. Don’t let the 700 plus pages intimidate you, every single page was worth it. Also, I don’t think that I’ll be able to look at a treehouse without shivering anymore.

“We can swallow our fear or let our fear swallow us.”