The Catcher in The Rye by J. D. Salinger
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Web ID: 15623460The Catcher in the Rye Caught My Heart
I love this book. The characters are so realistic and it is so vivid. It reads very easily. The only problem is if the main character was my friend in real life I would hate him and just not be friends with him anymore.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Re-read after 39 years. Still holds up.
Read back in high school and re-read today for book club, and it’s just as wonderful as I remembered. The Catcher in the Rye is of course, a classic. Everyone’s heard of it but I’ll tell ya, not everyone will love it. Why? Because Holden Caulfield is a piece of work! Tossed from private school for failing nearly all of his classes, Holden goes on a three day sabbatical from life. Delaying the inevitable, when he has to return home to his family for the holidays and clue them in to the fact that he has once again been kicked out of school. Holden packs up his belongings, smokes a lot of cigarettes and ponders life as he hits bar after bar, considering his options. He’s underage but wise beyond his years so he goes from place to place making observations and hoping, longingly for people to spend time with him. He makes a few calls. Meets a few friends. Feels a bit homesick for his baby sister Phoebe, but mostly just flits from one interaction to the next, lost. Holden is ALL of us. That’s what makes this such a good read. His insecurities are balanced by his overblown opinion of himself. Minus the bluster, the fancy hat, the cigarettes and booze and what you have is a teenage boy desperate for love. His loneliness screams at you while turning those pages. Funny story. When I was pregnant with my first child, the name Holden was a frontrunner. We decided to go with Evan, instead. But after reading this classic again, my son really IS Holden in real life. I highlighted many passages because they could have actually come right out of my son’s mouth. I shared this observation with him and he wasn’t impressed or compelled to read the book. See? He is Holden. What stays with me after reading this book is Holden’s voice. Salinger creates this living, breathing, sometimes seething Holden. He’s not the most well-liked guy but he can be charming, and often is, when not overcome with loneliness and doubt. If you haven’t read this classic, or you read it long ago. I mean, I was 16 the last time I read it, I highly recommend you pick up a copy.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
It's a good book
It's a great book that just receives unnecessary criticism. People hate the main character for stupid reasons. Imagine hating a teenage boy who suffers from very heavy PTSD from losing his brother, being sexually assaulted , then whiteness a classmate kill himself
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Excellent book
I was required to read this book in high school and I still think about it today. This is a great book that gets so much unnecessary hate and criticism as some people feel that it is just a sob story over nothing and that the narrator is overreacting. I feel the opposite as this book highlights the importance of metal health and the importance of protecting ones innocence. Overall this is definitely one book that I willl never forget reading and will forever thank my high school English teacher for making us read.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Great Read!
This book honestly kept me entertained the entire time besides, the agitation I felt against the main character. It made me audibly laugh several times throughout the novel. It was interesting to see Holden's perspective on certain situations and how he views people differently. The author intended for this novel to be a coming of age story and it truly reflects that. I recommend this novel to people looking for a great read!
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Would not recommend
This was an entertaining book, so I have no regrets about the time invested in reading it. However, in order for me to recommend a book, it needs to have more than just pure entertainment. I didn't feel like this was educational. It had bad language. Not many good words to look up. Also, not a very challenging read. I like to learn new words and new things. I felt like that was largely missing from this book.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
I HATE THIS BOOK!!!!
One of the worst books I’ve read. How am I suppose to root for a character who complains about how hard his life is when he’s rich white man living in New York during the 50s.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Themes and notable quotes
The four major themes of the novel with an illustrative quote: Loss of innocence: The protagonist, Holden Caulfield, grapples with the realization that the world is not as he thought it was. He is disillusioned by the phoniness and hypocrisy he sees in the adult world and struggles to come to terms with the loss of his own innocence. "The thing is everything's so g**d*** phony. It's full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a g**d*** Cadillac someday, and you have to be careful not to get shot by somebody like me in the meantime." Identity and individuality: Holden struggles with finding his own identity and feeling like he doesn't fit in with the expectations of society. He values authenticity and individuality and resists the idea of conforming to societal norms. "Don't tell anyone anything. If you do, you start missing everybody." Alienation and loneliness: Throughout the novel, Holden feels disconnected and isolated from the world around him. He struggles to form meaningful relationships and often feels misunderstood and alone. "I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going, I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all." The complexities of growing up: The novel explores the challenges and struggles that come with growing up and transitioning into adulthood. Holden grapples with the expectations and responsibilities of being an adult and the difficulty of finding one's place in the world. "I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com