Twenty-five years ago, my best friend in high school handed me this book and told me "you must read this." I did, for the first time, this week. I think it has fallen out of popularity as required reading in high school, possibly due to its New England boarding school setting, or its WWII time period or its characters only consisting of white, affluent males.

However, despite some of today's youth being out of touch with some or all of these things, they are absolutely in touch with the central theme: adolescence. This novel has a simple setting, a basic plot, few characters and limited dialogue. Yet, it is quite brilliant. The writer in me applauded. I don't know if I've ever been more startled by a protagonist as I was while reading this novel, or more appreciative in how much is said in fewer than 200 pages. Hardly a word is wasted. As corny as this may sound, I wanted to shake the author's hand and say "thank you for making me think and feel and for not wasting my time." Bravo.

I hated this book. It took itself far too seriously, in its portrayal of the deep, emotional, almost homo-erotic relationship between two rich white aristocratic prep school boys in the '40s. Of course, a proponent of this book would argue that the love between them is not repressed homosexuality, but rather a deeper bond of friendship than most of us could dream of. Well, it's not. It is slow and tries to attach deep meaning to everything in the book, showing the overwhelming affection and guilt felt by the protagonist. I have hated this book from the moment I started it. It may be a classic, but a lot of the time, classics take themselves far too seriously, and everyone is fooled into thinking that that makes them incredible books. Well, to hell with that. I'm gonna come out and say it: this book should be banned from any curriculum it is in.