The novel “A Separate Peace” is one that tries to depict the normal life of a typical army academy student and the psychological effects of being forced to suddenly mature  at an early age.

However, it merely comes across as a bunch of uber immature middle schoolers squabbling about who should be more popular; the guy with the fun things or me because I said so?  I understand that there is a lot of pressure on these young boys to protect their country and they should be allowed a childhood, but there was no way any of them would have been of any use, because Gene would be too hormonal and catty to work productively with any one (he acts as though he’s a high school girl, telling her friend that shes so pretty and perfect to her face then secretly hating and plotting against her in reality), Finny was too much of a “free spirit” and a turncoat, Leper was too much of a dreamer, and Brinker was too much of a rule follower. I suppose it was all to give the effect of the different personalities of a war, but they were so exaggerated that it all became so ridiculously elementary that it lost its intensity.

Also, the ending chapter from Gene is so deep and out there that it becomes hard to grasp after and entire book of immaturity and flip-floppy hormones. And even then, Gene still considers Finny his greatest enemy, yet glorifies him as his God when he was just a foolish boy who knew nothing of life or wisdom- all he knew were his own lies, yet Knowles conveys this as a winning flaw, which seems to be one of the “life lessons” of the book. We do not get the resolving satisfaction from Gene of the discovery of the truth, only that he feels he was right the whole time about Finny, even though he had two completely contradicting feelings towards it. Yet he still thinks he has “peace” with the entire thing! This leaves the reader in the state of bafflement, disconnected from Gene for now the entire book, which creates such a sympathy void that it becomes a pointless read.

Also, the death of Finny is so abruptly dropped in that it more of an “oh okay” than an “OH MY GOSH WHAT?” In my opinion the second is more favorable and is harder to evoke. It is also such an anticlimactic way to die that Finny becomes even more disliked in the readers mind and gives Gene more room to increase his non-relatable insanity.

So although is was well written and there were no plot holes, there was such a high factor of ridiculousness and immaturity that it was hard to comprehend seriously.