Customer Reviews:
Great book in great format
There is no need to review the literacy work, I guess, but I was delighted of the book format itself.
While ordering I haven't noticed that it is not a regular format and really like it. It is small, really suits for carrying around and is very good for personal gift, which was the purpose of purchase.
I like also hard covers and recycled-like paper.

Not worth it's iconic status.
This was the selection for my book club, and it was chosen since it is considered a classic. I'm sure at the time it was a masterpiece, and it feels very authentic, but it doesn't really strike me as timeless. The general view of the club was no one really liked it. I'm glad I read it, since I at least now know, but I would not recommend it nor reread it.

Should have read it in high school
So...I know this is a supposed classic and it sooo great and blah blah blah pffft. But, I did not like it. I don't know if it's because I didn't read it in high school like everyone else but read it later in life when I just wanted this whiny spoiled rich kid to shutttt upppppp. I also didn't care for the writing style - some may call it simple prose, I call it crap that my cat could write (and probably would. My cat has a similar sense of entitlement to that of Holden Caulfiend - oops, I mean Caulfield) Now, I try not to let this influence my opinion of J.D. salinger's other celebrated work as I have not yet read anything else by him and I hear Frannie and Zooey is amazing. So, yeah, there you have it. Didn't like Catcher in the Rye, so sue me.

Where's The Beef..........?
I cannot fathom why anyone became famous, or wealthy, for writing this material... "The Catcher In The Rye" is one long, rambling, goofy, repetitive in the *extreme* diatribe...presented as an ode to Borderline Personality Disorder. It's like page after page after page...of absolutely nothing. And at the end of it all, there is no pay off. There is no conclusion to the story. Don't hope for one; it is not there.

Holden Caulfield gets kicked out of school (again), but he doesn't do anything amazing with his time, except wander around for a weekend. He gets drunk, but he never really has much fun doing it. He picks up with a prostitute, but he gets no action. His creepy room mate dates his childhood friend, but nothing whatsoever comes of that either. His teacher cops a feel on him in the middle of the night, but the one he gets is really pretty silly to read about. He gets slapped around some, but never gets the stuffing knocked out of him, nor any sense knocked in. He gets sick toward the end, but he's not suffering from anything major. And after 200 pages of terror over what his parents will think, you never actually hear what they have to say. All the reader knows is, Holden's intelligence is upstaged by a 10 year old. Worst of all, after all of this whining & carrying on... Holden doesn't come to any important new realizations about life, himself, or anyone else.

The realization I came to on the final page, is that just because a piece of writing is referred to as "a classic", that does not mean it is particularly well written, or profoundly meaningful. J.D. Salinger wrote a relatively small collection of fiction, "The Catcher In The Rye" was his most "outstanding" writing, it was the hallmark of his life's work, it became famous for some vague reason, & yet... It says nothing. I don't know how it inspired 3 infamous stalker-killers to carry it around with them, when they went off to do their deeds... Personally, I would be embarrassed to have this book found on me at the scene of a crime. I'd probably lie, & say it was the victim's...

So I researched this book & its author online, hoping to find some redeeming quality, some critically important point, or theme I must have missed. My first realization was the possibility that perhaps Holden Caulfield didn't accrue any hard won life wisdom on his 3 day lost weekend, because the author himself didn't live his life any wiser, in regards to the people around him. I also discovered that the book's primary cultural value is "a liturgy to teenage angst". But there are far better ones out there... If you're looking for this in literature, "Ask Alice" is much more significant work, & it gets far more accomplished as a piece of writing.

Interesting, But Underwhelming
I read this novel because I love classic works of literature. From Homer to Dostoyevsky to Sartre, I love it all, including modern classics. Naturally, that this book is counted among the modern classics, as well as its association with the assassination of John Lennon, both recommended this book for my reading list. I read it first when I was 17 years old, and again recently at 22. Frankly, I have never quite understood its place on the list of classics as it is often described. Sometimes I think that the only reason it is so popular is because it was banned in many places, in the same way that Ulysses (which I would count as a classic, personally) is so often counted among the Classics by people who have never read it. I'm not a fuddy-duddy or a stuffy classicist: I absolutely adore books with no plot, interesting first-person narration, quirky characters, etc. But I just don't quite "get it", and I never have.

Perhaps it is because I simply do not like the character. I didn't find Holden Caulfield endearing, or witty, or particularly interesting; to be honest, I find him annoying. In fact, of all the characters portrayed in this work, Holden is the one whom I like, or with whom I can identify, the least. He is whiny and foul-mouthed, and uses the words "phony" and "god****" every other paragraph. I am not criticizing Salinger's writing--in fact, it's dead on. I had no difficulty whatsoever believing that this was really written by a teenage boy. But it just doesn't ring any bells, or flip any switches, for me. It's okay, and not a bad read on a lazy afternoon, but beyond that it falls flat. Perhaps I would have to have grown up during the time period of this novel to really grasp what the author is trying to get across.

Overall, worth reading, but don't accept its status as a "classic" simply because everyone else does.

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