Nadira's Reviews > The Catcher in the Rye

It’s a pretty small book – 270 pgs or so. The size of the book made me excited to pick it up. Wanted a quick, easy read. And that’s exactly what I got. This is supposed to be a Modern Classic. If classics are this fun, I don’t mind reading them. The language almost made it seem like just another contemporary fiction. I liked getting inside the mind of Holden Caulfield – a 16 year old teenager who is struggling with anger and depression triggered by his school, phony adults, phony peers and the recent death of his brother. You can really relate to this guy – how he tries to be polite and a good person and yet is so vexed and sarcastic in his thoughts. Aren’t we all the same with so many shades in our personality? His sarcasm was too hilarious and made me crack up throughout the book. I loved reading about the tender relationship he shares with his little sister too.

But on the downside, the guy rants too much, is way too cynical for a teenager and the book sort of ends abruptly. His statement in the book “Don’t tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody” sheds light to the fact that he’s nostalgic and is beginning to finally value the people in his life and is perhaps shedding his earlier impenetrable skin of cynicism. It felt like a plotless book with no beginning, middle or ending. As per me…. the guy is obviously a loony – traumatized or depressed whatever it may be- he’s mentally not stable and needs some serious psychoanalysis and medical attention. I was afraid for his life throughout the book. I just wanted to slap him across the face and shake him up and put some sense into him. Wanted him to open his eyes and see that he was turning out to be what he hated the most in others - the biggest phony after all.

I gave it a 4 star coz I enjoyed the book, specially the sarcastic sense of humor. But I immediately changed it to a 3-star coz honestly, I didn’t take away anything from this pointless, plotless book.