In life, as in books, there can be much friendship; in some cases there can be bad friendships and there can be good friendships. In A Separate Peace Gene, in my opinion, Gene is not a good friend. Even in Catcher in the Rye Holden, in my opinion, is not a good friend. I think Holden and Gene are not good friends to other people and don't really know how to maintain a friendship, because even though they both have friends, they both still discern their friends negatively or think bad things about them; because the person or friend has done something bad towards him or because he feels insecure towards the person or the situation he finds himself in. In the book A Separate Peace Gene has some friends in Devon, but he has a best friend, Phineas (Finny), and Gene gets along really well with him; but Gene has a different view on Finny than everyone else at Devon. Gene and Finny are best friends but in their relationship Gene has the wrong impression of Finny. “'Come on, let's go. We have to be there. You never know, maybe this time he will.' Oh, for God's sake." I slammed down the French book. 'What's the matter?' What a sight! His face was completely questioning and sincere” (Knowles 57). Gene thinks that Finny is trying to take him away from his studies and is trying to get ahead of him. In my opinion if Gene was really a good friend he would never have had these thoughts about Finny or at least Gene would have known that this is how Finny behaves In the same sense Holden does the same thing with people who care about him or like him as a friend Holden, the main character, in the book Catcher in the Rye has friends but doesn't really know how to understand how they act towards him. Holden judges a person before he really knows what he is trying to do; he calls people who are not his close friends/teachers, Phonies. “I didn't want to get into the whole thing with him. He wouldn't have understood it anyway. It wasn't his thing at all. One of the main reasons I left Elkton Hills was because I was surrounded by fakes.