The Catcher in the Rye

Rating:
Summary: To be a Teenager!
Review: I can understand how some people would find this book incredibly dull because honestly, nothing really happens except this 16 year old bitches about his life. But, it cracks me up every time I read it. Sophomore year, my advanced english class read it and all my friends simply adored it. It wasn't the typical run-of-the-mill english book. This book made you laugh, made you think, and made you understand, if not actually feel for Holden. Salinger is a genius (and quite mysterious). "Franny and Zoey" made no sense to me since I didn't have an english teacher to explain it to me, but I'm four years out of sophomore english and still read this book every year. I'm glad it wasn't banned in my high school!!

Rating:
Summary: Incredible book.
Review: Salinger has been criticized for an overabundance of pathos through the story, as opposed to objective 'tragedy' as one critic termed it. I think this is a myopic criticism however, CITR is much more modern than any true tragedy and it aptly portrays the confusion of the time (that continues untill modern times). Pathos is undoubtedly the best way to express this confusion. Salinger's prose is refreshing becomes it doesn't have a distinct theme to it, sometimes ineffable emotion is better than indoctrination. It's interesting to note that those who didn't like the book were somehow forced into reading it.

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Summary: This book changed peoples lives?
Review: If Salinger had eliminated the words "g**damn" and "phonies" from this book I could have cut down the amount of time I wasted by reading it by half. Catcher in the Rye may have been groundbreaking when first published almost five decades ago but today whatever edge it once held is now lost. Teachers who rember this book as a life changing event and assign it to their students would be better off remembering sometimes that what is eyeopening to them may be an eye closer to others. If you want to see true literary greatness read Hugo, the word phonies isn't mentioned once and doesn't need to be.

Rating:
Summary: Great!
Review: Being a 16 year old high school student, I had to read this book for English and thought it was great. I understand how some people can find this book absolutely pointless, but Holden really does tell life like it is, saying things that I believe we all think in our heads in one point of our lives. This is a book every teenager should read.

Rating:
Summary: It was pretty good, but it did get boring in the end.
Review: The Catcher in the Rye started off as a funny and interesting book. The jokes that the author would crack, and the storyline and all made for a really exciting beginning. I got really into it and couldn't put it down. But as the story went on, it got really boring. The story started getting a little dull. Actually, very dull. If someone asked me, I wouldn't recommend this book for anything.

Rating:
Summary: Is a top 100 book and best seller only by popularity
Review: After teachers and friends telling me that I simply *HAD* to read it, I went out and spent 6 bucks on The Catcher in the Rye. If I wanted to be put to sleep I could have done it for much cheaper than 6 bucks. Perhaps it gained popularity because it was one of the first books to swear and show the grim reality of some aspects of life. There are numerous books which do this now, but are not nearly as popular as this one. I found the book lacking in plot, variety, climax, and skill in every way. While it was not the worst book I have read, it is still on my list of books I would rather have a root canal than read again. If someone wants to read about and experience the grim reality of the world, read "Atlas Shrugged". If you want to listen to a teenager whine repeatedly without any direction...call me (I'm 17) or waste the money and read Catcher in the Rye.

Rating:
Summary: Highly overrated
Review: I must say that this is one of the most pointless books I have ever read. It seems to appeal to the "typical teenager" who thinks the world is full of hypocrites. The book itself holds no redeeming qualities at all and served no purpose except to waste my time.

Rating:
Summary: A book I'll never forget
Review: I read this book when I was 16 and it is one that I still think about a lot. I must have read it at least 10 times and each time it has just got better and better. I found myself relating to certain bits of it as a confused mixed-up teenager trying to discover themselves. A great deal of it still sticks in my mind years later.

Rating:
Summary: Classic. Classic. Classic.
Review: I was amazed to read in an earlier review where someone mentioned that the pilot character in that new WWII novel, "The Triumph and the Glory", reminded her of Holden Caulfield. I'd just read both books myself and was thinking the same thing, but figured it was just one of those perceptions one has that no one else on the planet ever has or ever will share because there isn't a shred of reality to sustain it. Anyway, The Catcher in the Rye is still, after all of these years, a monumental expression of human nature and the conditions budding adults face when they begin to fathom how the real world actually functions (or fails to function).

Rating:
Summary: i love it and hate it at the same time!
Review: i read this book the other day....straight through without stopping. Although i found it a great book and some of the discriptions amazing and the feelings so easy to relate to and true to life, especially well ahead of it's time, and extremely clever the way it u know so much about stuff in the past despite it's short present tense, about 3/4 of the way through to book i began to get bored. It was getting kinda repetative....u just wanted him to go away, or go home, ring jane or do SOMETHING! but he doesn't and much to my suprise (due to the fact i had loads of blank pages at the back of my book) it ends! The only tiny glimmer of an ending being him finding a moments happiness.
I s'pose that's the clever part of the book...to catch the reader by suprise...but it wasn't half annoying....i had a good mind at first to write my own ending!
oh, i don't know what i think...well i'd recommend this book to anyone who likes to think, it's a very deep book but to anyone who can't stand things being unfinished don't even begin to read it!