A Seperate Peace by John Knowles

Opening:

"I went back to Devon School not long ago, and found it looking oddly newer than when I was a student there 15 years ago." 

I listened to this book after reading Once Upon a Wardrobe. The book was mentioned and since I enjoyed that book, I thought I'd give Separate Peace a go. 

A classic coming-of-age story about boys at a prep school. It's about the popular boy who instigates crazy shenanigans and pulls everyone into the whirlwind with him. 

The popular kid starts a club; pulls the newbie nerd along; it's fun and games before it's not; things go awry; lies are told; pride is hurt; friends are no longer friends.

WWII is on the horizon, but the boys at the school are sheltered and don't believe anything is actually happening, not until a few classmates don't come back to school. Reality of childhood mets reality of adulthood. It's hard to read about the end of a childhood. 

An American classic and great bestseller for over thirty years, A Separate Peace is timeless in its description of adolescence during a period when the entire country was losing its innocence to the second world war.

Set at a boys boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.

A bestseller for more than thirty years, A Separate Peace is John Knowles crowning achievement and an undisputed American classic.