A Separate Peace
I read this book in high school English class, but it's been removed from school reading lists for profanity, difficult subject matter, and implied sexual content. Set at a boys' boarding school during the early years of WWI, this book portrays the dark side of adolescence, showing two young friends waking up to the jaded reality of the adult world as the nation likewise was waking up to the reality of its deeply troubled era.
Publisher’s description:
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 World War II.
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.