Ugh. I so wanted to like this book, I just couldn’t get into it, couldn’t see the point of it, can’t understand the hype. Yes, it’s an interesting perspective written in an interesting manner, but is it good? Not in my opinion.

As a banned book, I was drawn to The Catcher in the Rye, and for that reason, I am glad to have read it. I don’t think any books should be banned; if you don’t like them or their content, don’t read them, but don’t ban them.

I would love to write this review on what the book was about, but that too, is difficult - I’m not really sure. A 17-year old boy flunks out of what appears to be his umpteenth school after the death of his brother, and he doesn’t want to face his parents with this news, so he takes a few days meandering around New York having adventures. Meh.

I would, however, suggest reading this, it is highly acclaimed and well-written, just not my cup of tea, plot-wise. ( )

Representation: Minor Asian character
Trigger warnings: Smoking, alcohol use, gun violence, racism, racist slurs, suicidal thoughts and suicide mentioned, emesis
Score: Seven points out of ten.
Find this review on The StoryGraph.

I wanted to read The Catcher in the Rye since I saw it circle my recommendations, and when I saw a library having this, I immediately wanted to pick it up. I couldn't glance at the blurb, since there was no blurb. However, I went in with high hopes. When I closed the final page, the book was enjoyable.

It starts with the first character I see, Holden, who had to leave school after his expulsion and now the only action he can do is to wander around New York. He spends all of the narrative doing that and contemplating others, and, most importantly, himself. I was in Holden's mind throughout the fictional composition, and initially, I was disconnected from him and couldn't relate. I feared I wouldn't enjoy The Catcher in the Rye. Eventually, Holden grew on me and I liked it more and more. However, I still have gripes with it. A less repetitive writing style would've added to The Catcher in the Rye. The author could've put as much effort into the other characters as Holden. But he did not, making it difficult for me to connect or relate to them. For a novel over 200 pages, it's slow-paced. There isn't a genuine conclusion to The Catcher in the Rye, but I delighted myself in reading it nonetheless. ( )

A slightly addictive monologue which left me wondering about why so many of the 'great American novels' that I've read recently, such as Kerouac's On the Road and Roth's Portnoy's Complaint, are monologues about going nowhere. The former (although written earlier) seems to pick up where Catcher in the Rye leaves off; the idea of leaving the city (or a life) and hitching a ride to no particular destination.

Normally, when I read, I mark special passages but here I didn't. Not sure why. Holden's voice is a sustained tour de force but I found myself wondering, at times what certain encounters contributed and how easily they could have been omitted. In many ways I think, with editing it would have made a better short story piece than a novel. Holden does not really go anywhere. ( )

A classic bildungsroman. I liked it less than other coming-of-age-novels I've read such as [b:Siddharta|444555|Siddharta|Hermann Hesse|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1296827112s/444555.jpg|4840290], but in overall it was pretty good. I couldn't relate to the cynical and mistrusting personality of the main character, which, combined with his apathy for the future and his self-fashioned loneliness, set a depressing tone for the book. It was not until I read the analysis from SparkNotes that I begun to understand the novel a little better. It also gives a very interesting impression of the loneliness and shallowness one could experience in citylife in the 50's. ( )

Read for a YA Lit course. I liked parts of it, but the swearing in literally every sentence (or every other sentence) was distracting. It took away some of my enjoyment of the book. I did really love the ending though. ( )

I've read weirder books, but they usually had some sort of plot. I'm not sure what the point of this book is or why it's such a classic. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it, either. I didn't consider it a waste of time; it wasn't that bad, but I don't feel like I've been missing out all these years by not reading it, either. ( )

I wish I could give it 6 stars. Lol I love this book so much. ( )

The classic coming-of-age story of sixteen-year-old Holden Caufield. This was a re-read but I was a teenager when I read it and recalled nothing. The story covers a couple of days in the life of Holden as he hides out in New York City waiting for his parents to receive the letter that he has been expelled yet again. The narrative is the ramblings of Holden as he says what he's doing and thinks on all sorts of topics past and present as he philosophizes about life. The book is slow-paced and I thought that would pay off with a good ending. But it didn't. Certainly, readable and gives pause for thought but somewhat dated. ( )

Confesso que sempre tive certa restrição por este livro pela ligação com Mark David Chapman, assassino de John Lennon. Uma pena, pois desejaria ter conhecido a obra na minha adolescência.

O livro de maneira geral é carregado de cultura americana dos pós segunda guerra mundial, época de prosperidade e transformação social e cultural. Nesse ambiente o adolescente rebelde, Holdem Caulfield, expulso da escola, parte em uma jornada existencialista por Nova Iorque em busca de um sentido na vida.

Pontos negativos são o excesso de coloquialismo, brutalidade e vulgaridade. ( )

Holden caulfield -this book is all about him. Holden is a teenager who is snotty, irreverential, opinionated, petulant,in short, he is a non-conformist. He had an opinion on just about everything: schools, movies, piano concerts, perverts, buildings etc.

Accustomed to call a spade a spade, he couldn't come to terms with phonies around him. He disdained the hypocrites and never once did he understand the need for education, or rather the impracticalities of education. He had a strict sense of what is right and what is wrong.

Nevertheless, he is also kind, intelligent, and guileless (of course, he lied at times, but not out of malice).

Book deals with adjustment/behavioral issues of a teenager who is in throes of adolescence. Holden is troubled morally and spiritually about the ways of the world.
( )

Um dos romances mais revolucionários do século XX, O apanhador no campo de centeio é a representação definitiva da juventude na literatura. Com mais de 70 milhões de cópias vendidas desde seu lançamento em 1951, o livro influenciou e marcou gerações de leitores com sua visão crua da adolescência, sua prosa ágil e desbocada e seu humor feroz e anárquico. Esta nova edição que chega agora ao leitor brasileiro tem tradução do premiado Caetano W. Galindo e, pela primeira vez, traz a capa original de seu lançamento.

É Natal, e Holden Caulfield conseguiu ser expulso de mais uma escola. Com uns trocados da venda de uma máquina de escrever e portando seu indefectível boné vermelho de caçador, o jovem traça um plano incerto: tomar um trem para Nova York e vagar por três dias pela grande cidade, adiando a volta à casa dos pais até que eles recebam a notícia da expulsão por alguém da escola. Seus dias e noites serão marcados por encontros confusos, e ocasionalmente comoventes, com estranhos, brigas com os tipos mais desprezíveis, encontros com ex-namoradas, visitas à sua irmã Phoebe -- a única criatura neste mundo que parece entendê-lo -- e por dúvidas que irão consumi-lo durante sua estadia, entre elas uma questão recorrente: afinal, para onde vão os patos do Central Park no inverno? Acima de todos esses fatos, preocupações e pensamentos, paira a inimitável voz de Holden, o adolescente raivoso e idealista que quer desbancar o mundo dos "fajutos", num turbilhão quase sem fim de ressentimento, humor, frases lapidares, insegurança, bravatas e rebelião juvenil.

Boy did I hate this book.

It reminds me of a scene from Family Guy back around the last time it was funny and right before it jumped a trainload of sharks and became terrible and I stopped watching. Quagmire is scolding Brian: "I don't buy them a copy of Catcher in the Rye and then lecture them with some seventh grade interpretation of how Holden Caulfield is some profound, intellectual. He wasn't! He was a spoiled brat! And that's why you like him so much... he's you!"

Holden Caufield is spoiled. There's a phrase that applies pertinently to him: "He's got more money than sense." I don't find him a sympathetic character at all, despite the things in his biography. He's still a rotten kid, a rotten person, and a rotten male. Salinger writes well, and I was engaged enough by the story, but I have no sympathy for the main character and his situation. Troubles all of his own making. He's the phony. The whole teen angst thing is sad and sorry and only exists among the rich and the recent. For most of human history, such a man as Holden Caufield would have already been doing back-breaking labor for years and years, with no money or time to blow on things like movies and prosses. No time to sulk and be all so self-centered "woe is me."

A book that gave a whole generation of spoiled baby boomers the excuse to drop out and lazily condemn the "establishment" when THEY were the phonies. It reminds me of another cartoon, the goth kid from South Park who rants about all the "conformists" in society and then tells Stan: "If you wanna be one of the non-conformists, all you have to do is dress just like us and listen to the same music we do." That might as well be Holden Caufield. ( )

Just some run-on ramblings about some teenager wandering around Manhattan after he gets booted out of a crumby prep school for about the third time. I never read the thing in high school and all. And it's supposed to be some kind of classic. I guess to a jaded adult it just seems kinda outdated and phony. But I wouldn't argue with you if you wanted to say you loved it. I really wouldn't. Ugh. ( )

ok ( )

When I first read this book I was pretty much the same age as Holden Caulfield but much less worldly than him so I thought he was sophisticated and cool. Reading it now, I just feel sorry for him. He never seems to have dealt with the death of his brother nor have his parents. He is obviously becoming an alcoholic and he needs a lot of therapy. I do find his bonds with his sister and his older brother to give hope. Recently, a friend returned some letters I had written her when I was that age. The similarities between my writing and phrasing and the way Salinger has Holden write are dead on. Salinger really caught that teenage angst. ( )

I get that this is an important novel in that it was one of the first that really spoke to young adults, and in that sense was one of the first ever young adult novels (even though it was originally written for adults). It also makes sense that kids who are feeling like outsiders, who are riding the teenage manic/depressive waves, would find a kindred spirit in Holden.

As an adult reader I just couldn't shake the feeling that Holden needed to stop being so negative and down on everyone. The only time he liked a person or a thing was when it was in the past, and he could remember it any way he liked. While this is very true to teenage life - I certainly lived that way - it is super annoying to have to hear about it. Glad I read it so now I can get people's references to it, but I probably wouldn't read it again. ( )

this kid is such a fucking freak my goodness. he is funny and real though. ( )

Worst fucking book ever.

This was a re-read. Read it first in high school, like most people. Liked it then. Still like it now. I even like Holden Caulfield, which seems to be a very minority opinion. I don't know what that says about me, but at 37, I can still kind of relate to him. ( )

Heartbreaking book, honestly one of the sadder books I've ever read. Holden is such a tragic character, who deals with trauma, sexual abuse, loneliness, depression, anxiety, and a host of other mental issues, landing himself in a psychiatric hospital for unspecified reasons (most likely attempted suicide). He's a kid who had to grow up too quickly, and was not ready to, and wants to protect other kids from the corruption of becoming an adult. ( )

What turns people off about this book is the character of Holden - his self-centered, anti-social and skewed outlook. It helps to know that Holden is the ultimate unreliable narrator, in that most of what he says on his journey home is part of his veneer of cynicism, a mask that slips only occasionally throughout the novel.

To me this is authentic. Teenagers learn quickly what roles they need to play to be accepted, and Holden hasn't learned this even though he wants acceptance. He feels affectionate towards others but has trouble showing it. His affluent life has left him spiritually hollow.

HC is extremely flawed, but his touching relationship with Phoebe is what forms the emotional center of the novel - the one time when he lets his guard down. I get a little misty every time I read this.

3rd reading:
"Look Sir. Don't worry about me," I said. "I mean it. I'll be all right. I'm just going through a phase right now. Everybody goes through phases and all, don't they?
"I don't know, boy. I don't know."
I hate it when somebody answers that way. "Sure. Sure, they do," I said. "I mean it, sir. Please don't worry about me." I sort of put my hand on his shoulder. "Okay?" I said.

Holden is leaving Mr. Spencer and thereafter Pencey Prep on his way to his downward spiral in New York. His hasty retreat from Spencer's judgment foreshadows his late night escape from Mr. Antolini's apartment. It's not clear if he is running from the judgment of his elders, or from a meaningful and caring relationship with a mentor.

When Holden asks about "going through a phase," he is really asking if people are capable of changing. His life literally depends on the answer. ( )

Grew on me. I really don't know what to say about this book. It felt like this one very long conversation with someone. ( )

In my search for a foray into classic novels, I nicked my girlfriend’s copy of The Catcher in the Rye, a book mentioned in American media as a slog that teenagers have to write reports on. It was charming and absorbing and I can immediately see why English teachers would seize upon it. Holden Caulfield is listless and depressed, bitter and cynical. He is entering an adult world full of phonies and crooks and cannot see a place for himself in it, despite the urging of teachers, peers, and family members who see his potential. I get the impression - or perhaps I am imposing my own experience onto the text - that not fulfilling his ‘potential’ is a way of reclaiming his individuality and freedom. The Catcher in the Rye does not overstay its welcome, yet surely rewards close reading for those so inclined. A great book all-in-all. ( )

a glimpse of a boy being an adult. ( )

A relevant adolescent perspective about coming of age, responses to trauma, and mental health - with just enough wit to make it enjoyable. ( )