Often touted as a coming-of-age book, I beg to differ. This book is about struggling with grief and loss.After suffering two tragedies, Holden is disoriented and searching for purchase. While Holden is desperately crying out for help, the adults in his life consistently fail him. Holden wants to preserve the innocence of children—something no one has done for him. And his kid sister Phoebe seems to provide the foundation which Holden so urgently needs.While The Catcher in the Rye is too characte...

a lot of people say this book sucks because holden is annoying and complains all the time, but that's actually why it's good.nothing could be more relatable.and also it's the story of a heartbreakingly empathetic CHILD coping with coming of age and the death of his brother while being betrayed by every authority figure and person he trusts, and his main takeaway is still loving his sister and appreciating the world around him and missing everyone he's met.what book did these people read???part o...

journal entrytoday i am 15 years old. everything is all bullshit, as usual. i can't believe how fucked everything is around me. like i'm surrounded by zombies. i can't talk to any of my so-called friends, i can't talk to jamie, i can't talk to my parents. who would bother listening anyway. i cannot wait to leave orange county! this place makes me fucking sick. everyone is a hypocrite. everything is so goddamn bright and shiny and sunny and meaningless. FUCK, life is so full of crap.there is one ...

5.0 stars. I LOVE IT when I go into a book with low expectations and it ends up knocking me on my ass. Admittedly, this is tougher to do with "classics" but it certainly happened in this case. I remember first reading this in school (like many of us) and not thinking it was anything special. However, having first read it almost 25 years ago, I knew I had to read it again before I could feel justified in actually reviewing it. Of course, I didn’t hold out much hope that my feelings would change a...

I was worried as hell about reading this book again. The last time I read it was about a thousand years ago when I was just a kid. I was lousy with angst just like good old Holden back then. I really was. Now that I’m a crummy old guy I figured that I wouldn’t like it anymore. That’s the one thing about crummy old guys, they always hate books that kids like. Every time I reread a corny book that I really liked when I was a kid it makes me want to give the writer a buzz and ask what the hell is g...

I read the end of The Catcher in the Rye the other day and found myself wanting to take Holden Caulfield by the collar and shake him really, really hard and shout at him to grow up. I suppose I've understood for some time now that The Catcher in the Rye -- a favorite of mine when I was sixteen -- was a favorite precisely because I was sixteen. At sixteen, I found Holden Caulfield's crisis profoundly moving; I admired his searing indictment of society, his acute understanding of human nature, his...

I read this book for the first time in the 8th grade. I had to get my mom to sign a permission slip because of the cursing. Before I began reading, I had so many expectations. Back then, I read Seventeen Magazine, and back then, Seventeen Magazine ran brainy features about books and poetry. There was one feature where they asked people what book changed their lives, and something like more than half said Catcher in the Rye. I think there might have been some celebrity comments in there, too. At ...

In my hand I hold $5.
I will give it to anyone who can explain the plot of this book (or why there is no plot) and make me understand why the hell people think it's so amazing.

Edit: stop liking and commenting on this review. It's 2021. And the book is still shit.Edit 2: overall, the unhinged reactions to this review i wrote as a junior in high school says MUCH more about the GoodReads community than it does about my IQ or my ability to analyze literature. to the people frothing at the mouth over this: please go and touch grass. If I could give this book a zero, I would. I absolutely hated it. Generally, I don't hate books, either. Usually it's a very strong dislike, a...

My theory as to this book's unusually polarizing nature: either you identify with Holden Caulfield or you don't.Those who see themselves (either as they were or, God help them, as they are) in Holden see a misunderstood warrior-poet, fighting the good fight against a hypocritical and unfeeling world; they see in Salinger a genius because he gets it, and he gets them.Those of us who don't relate to Holden see in him a self-absorbed whiner, and in Salinger, a one-trick-pony who lucked into perform...