The Perks of Being a Wallflower Author Stephen Chbosky to Release Second Novel

To garner worldwide success from a debut novel is some achievement, but it’s exactly what Stephen Chbosky did with his 1999 novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

The epistolary novel is told through letters as we follow the life of Charlie, an introverted teenager as he goes through freshman year at his local high school.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower was an immediate success, and became MTV Books’ best selling novel of the year 2000, selling 100,000 copies. In 2012 the novel was listed on NPR’s list of the “100 best-ever teen novels” and if that popularity wasn’t enough then a movie adaptation sealed the book’s fate as a teen classic.

So the news that Chbosky is about to release his second novel is music to our ears! The new book is called Imaginary Friend and is a little different to The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It’s being described as “a wildly ambitious, sweeping work of literary horror”.

Imaginary Friend follows the story of Kate Reese, a single mother fleeing an abusive relationship by starting over in a new town with her young son. However, her world soon begins to unravel when her son disappears into the Mission Street Woods where a similar disappearance happened fifty years before.

Here’s what Stephen Chbosky tweeted about his second novel.

Imaginary Friend is out on October 1st and you can pre-order now on the link below.

Imaginary Friend