Now I personally know that A Separate Peace may seem like a boring book, with its simple tree on the front and a boring old picture of the protagonist Gene, but, according to a common yet accurate cliche, don’t judge a book by its cover.

          A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, is actually one of my favorite books. If you’re looking for a great book with a depressing ending, then A Separate Peace is perfect. Knowles has written a book about a passive-aggressive character named Gene who attends a boarding school, the Devon School.  This book takes place during the war and many of the high school boys who attend this school think about enlisting. Passive-aggressive Gene is very jealous of his friend Finny, a natural born athlete, leader, and all-around popular guy. On the other hand, Gene is just plain old, studious Gene.

One day when all the Devon boys were bored, Finny made a game called blitzkrieg, which genuinely interested me. s played There are no teams, but one just try to run down to the river with the ball without being tagged, and the goal is to throw the ball to whomever you can.  This is one of the many situations where Gene gets persuaded to do what Finny wants to do. In addition, Finny makes many clubs–one of which is the suicide club, which requires the members to jump out of a tall old oak tree and into the river. Gene and Finny are the only ones who complete this. Gene and Finny become the best of friends.

Until Gene wobbles the branch on purpose, when he and Finny were on the tree, causing Finny to fall and break his leg. Finny didn’t know it was Gene, and Gene felt incredibly guilty, but that is no excuse for purposely hurting his friend. Gene says that he just wanted Finny to be jealous of him–he wanted them to be even; they didn’t end up being even. Finny goes home to heal his leg and Leper, also in the suicide club, enlisted in the ski-troops for the war.  He ends up coming back a few weeks later with some mental illness and gone really crazy. A few months later, Finny returns, and he and Brinkerwants have a mock trial to see what happens to Finny’s leg. The riveting ending of the mock trial makes Finny really angry because he comes to terms with it being Gene who ruined his life. To find out the ending, read the book!