I didn’t expect to see myself in Charlie. Not completely. But enough. That feeling of not knowing where you belong — of watching everyone else seem to find their place while you stand slightly outside of it, wondering what you’re doing wrong.
Charlie finds his people. And then he does what so many of us do — he tries so hard to keep them that he loses himself in the process. He reaches for things that numb the feelings he doesn’t know how to carry. Because nobody taught him that feelings don’t actually switch off.
PULLQUOTE: “The bravest thing you can do is let someone in. To stop performing okayness. To ask for help — before it’s too late.”
What stayed with me was not the darkness of this book. It was the moment he finally asks for help. Do you know how much courage that takes? To say — I am not okay, and I need someone to know that?
Most of us spend years learning to say those words.
And then there is the little mole, sitting with the boy in the snow, asking him: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“Kind,” says the boy.
That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
Two very different books. The same quiet truth at the center of both — that the bravest thing you can do is let someone in. To stop performing okayness. To ask for help not when you have no other choice, but before that. Earlier. While there is still time.
Was there a moment in your life when asking for help changed everything? Tell me below. 🖤
Find The Perks of Being a Wallflower here → https://amzn.to/4nXkF7D
Find The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse here → https://amzn.to/4dWDkvE
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