So... Do I give this book five stars? It is a great book, but I don't think I'll be running around telling people to goddamn read it! It is educational, it is a piece of history, so to say, and it is something someone should at least read once in their life. But it still won't go up in my favourite-books-shelf. 
 What makes this book special is that it is one of a kind. It deals with a horrible event of a group of boys in a plane-crash forcing them to survive on a deserted island. But not as other similar stories, instead of focusing on the action, the survival, the fighting for food, it focuses on the psychological damage an unescapable situation can cause, the hate and anger and irrationality it can bring out even in the best of us. 
 Every character represents something; reason, carelessness, pride, vain, justice, innocence and many other deeds of the human kind. Every character plays an important role in the story, every character develops it further and further into a dark black void. 
 It would definitely be interesting to see the same story develop between a group of solely girls, but even if the author says that he wrote a story about boys because women will never be equal to men - yes, he actually said that in the preface - I think it's mainly because he, a boy himself, knows how they work. 
 EDIT: I have been informed by a friend that I misunderstood that part, he actually meant women are superior? To which I will still say that in my opinion women can be just as hateful and horrible human beings as men, but it makes the author a lot more likeable to me. 
 All in all I'd say interesting read and definitely worth checking out, but now that I crossed it off my to read-list, I'm not going to pick it up again.