The love between them despite all their hardships is paramount, and it becomes clear that Kate would do anything to give her son the best life possible-even take him to McDonald’s for a treat when she has crippling debt. The mother-son duo do their best to make ends meet, but their financial reality is hard Kate tries to shield Christopher from the truth, and even though she is able to get a job at Shady Pines, the town nursing home, they still struggle to make ends meet. This 700-paged book begins when seven-year-old Christopher and his mother Kate move to a small town in Pennsylvania to escape Kate’s abusive ex-boyfriend Jerry. So part of the enjoyment for me was delving into a book very different from other books I’ve read. In fact, Imaginary Friend is a book totally outside of my ordinary-its genre could be considered horror or psychological thriller, while I typically read standard fiction. (Sidenote: and if you haven’t read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, do that too!)

This one caught my eye because as a high schooler, Perks was my favorite book, and although Imaginary Friend promised to be nothing like its young adult masterpiece predecessor, I was excited to crack into it because I love Chbosky’s writing and how he tells a story. If you’ve read and loved The Perks of Being a Wallflower like I have, then the fact that Imaginary Friend is written by Stephen Chbosky may intrigue you as well.

An imaginary friend book