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The Chocolate War (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)

The Chocolate War is an unrelentingly bleak account of life in a Catholic boys’ school, from its opening line (“They murdered him.”) to the closing defeat of its young protagonist and the reascendancy of the school's evil forces. Yet the novel is also an important example of the realistic quality of much young-adult fiction, and it is certainly Cormier's strongest effort in this field.

Set in a small New England city, the novel could take place in any urban academic setting—at least in any school where the pressures of grades, conformity, and repressed sexuality...

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