The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Cover redesign for Stephen Chbosky’s novel. The cover concept is based upon the following quote from the book:

Patrick then said something I don’t think I’ll ever forget.
“He’s a wallflower.”
And Bob really nodded his head. And the whole room nodded their head. And I started to feel nervous in the Bob way, but Patrick didn’t let me get too nervous. He sat down next to me.
“You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand.”

The book’s protagonist is described as a wallflower, a fly on the wall. Also we, as readers, are wallflowers that read about this world Chbosky presents, without being able to interact with it. And still, it doesn’t end there, as the book is written as letters to an anonymous ‘friend’, this character (that we never get to meet) is as much a wallflower as we, the readers, are.

So, who is portrayed on this cover as a literal flower. Is it Charle? Is it his ‘friend’? Or is it us, the readers?

The whole cover plays with this ambiguity of who is being portrayed in the cover, leaving space for the reader to decide by him or herself.