Book Review: "Imaginary Friend" by Stephen Chbosky

Stephen Chbosky is the writer of the great YA novel that served my generation with amazing quotations, brilliantly diverse characters and a film which we have all seen thousands of times - "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" was one of the most incredible books of my teen years. "Imaginary Friend" could not be further from that previous endeavour of his. An experiment in the nature of psychodrama, "Imaginary Friend" is one of the best bildungsroman I have ever read in terms of how a child gains and loses his imagination and what happens when children go missing.

The novel is about a boy called Christopher Reese who lives with his mother, Kate Reese. Christopher's father has recently died and his mother was with an abusive man called Jerry before they had to run away to live somewhere called Shady Pines. Christopher is dyslexic and often gets his letters mixed up and one of the cool things about the book is that Stephen Chbosky writes things that Christopher has trouble saying in the way that he would probably spell it. But when Christopher goes missing in the weird woods after following a cloud, he comes out smarter and more diligent than ever. His dyslexia severely reduced, Christopher has no problems with numbers or letters and begins to even lie to his mother about what he is doing at night. When he is supposed to be at a friend's house for a sleepover, he is actually building a treehouse in those woods - the one his mother warned him not to go to - the one where he went away for six days and remembers almost nothing.

Ambrose is an old man with cataract who basically dislikes anyone who wants to make conversation with him. He is rude and passes it off as being in pain or tired etc. constantly making excuses. When Christopher arrives at a hospital, he meets Ambrose who gives him a cookie after Christopher encounters a woman telling him he will die on Christmas Day. Ambrose and Christopher are connected in a whole host of different ways and yet, neither of them has any idea what Christopher will uncover. I just suggest that you read the prologue as carefully as you can and pay attention to Mary's baby.

Written in a distinct style of psychodrama and produced with a non-chronological method which switches between various timelines, Stephen Chbosky has gone out of his way to make this one of the most exciting novels you will ever read about growing up. Subversive, dark and with several underlying metaphors, this novel is a great way to explore why children make up imaginary friends, what imagination has to do with the psyche and the way in which people explore the theme of death through their own lives and encounters with the dead.

The characters each have their own background, their own way of life and their own issues and they come together in a perfect way to create an overall picture which is damaged by parents being in pain, children with learning disorders and local legends that scare the pants out of anyone visiting the town. This legend seems to get the children engaged to a new point and changes the entire atmosphere of the novel. It is revisited over and over again, explored from every angle and nobody believes it until people start seeing the weird changes in the air.

Legend has it that some time ago, a child went missing in Shady Pines after running into the woods. Legend has it that he was never seen again. Legend even has it that he was buried alive.