
Age: 56
male
Stephen Chbosky (born January 25, 1970) is an American novelist, screenwriter, and film director best-known for writing The New York Times bestselling coming-of-age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999), as well as for writing and directing the film version of the same book, starring Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, and Ezra Miller. He also wrote the screenplay for the 2005 film Rent and Disney's 2017 live action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, alongside Evan Spiliotopoulos, and was co-creator, executive producer, and writer of the CBS television series Jericho, which aired from 2006 to 2008. Most recently, he directed the 2017 drama Wonder, starring Julia Roberts, Owen Wilson, and Jacob Tremblay. His next novel, Imaginary Friend, was published in October 2019.

Daniel is the back-up punter for the Erie Hills Elephants. Which really means he’s the water boy. He spends football practice perfectly arranging water cups—and hoping no one notices. Actually, he spends most of his time hoping no one notices his strange habits—he calls them Zaps: avoiding writing the number four, for example, or flipping a light switch on and off dozens of times over. He hopes no one notices that he’s crazy, especially his best friend Max, and Raya, the prettiest girl in school. His life gets weirder when another girl at school, who is unkindly nicknamed Psycho Sara, notices him for the first time. She doesn’t just notice him: she seems to peer through him. Then Daniel gets a note: “I need your help,” it says, signed, Fellow Star Child—whatever that means. And suddenly Daniel, a total no one at school, is swept up in a mystery that might change everything for him.
