A Seperate Peace by John Knowles
Iva's rating: 2 out of 5 stars

A story of two friends living in the midst of WWII, A Seperate Peace crafts a tale of the power jealousy has over all of us.  Characterizing this power, Knowles concocts Gene Forrester, a paranoid and annoying 16-year-old who is envious of his athletic and adventure-loving roommate, Finny.  Gene, acting in jealousy, commits a horrible act against his so-call best friend and then tries to make up for it by later being overly nice to Finny.  Yet, Finny is not lovable either.  His overly perfect charaacther lacks in the intelligence department and he only realizes his "best friend's" true nature on his death bed.  Nevertheless, the story is not so awful as to deserve one star -- if the sickening characters can be tolerated, then the theme of jealous as well as other minor themes such as war can be appreciated as being established in an interesting way.

*NOTE:  No matter what the back cover of The Perks of Being a Wallflower says, no feasible connection can be seen between these two books.  So, if as a fan of Perk's you wanted to read this book, don't waste your time.