The Catcher in the Rye

Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: For a book written in the 50's--well, it's pretty 'goddamn' good and courageous. I suppose it was the first of it's kind--a realsitic view into the typical adolescent. after all, we aren't all perfect straight-a straight thinking kids. I liked it for it's honesty and it was funny, sweet and beautiful at parts, too.Holden Caulfiend is the biggest dweeb, though, oh my god. An interesting, vivid character, though. I recommend you read it...just to see

Rating:
Summary: the catcher in the rye
Review: this book wasn't that bad but I'm sure I wouldn't read it again. because we had to read it I finished it otherwise I should have stopped after the first chapter. if you read one page Holden said about 20 times "the damn" and that bothered me a lot. something else I didn't like about the way it was written was that the writer wrote like the way they said it.By example: Ya lost them, Ya mean and sonuvabitch, and that was in a way confusing. the books gets better after the lost chapters when he goes home and spends some time with his sister. the book is easy to read, there are only a few difficult words in it and that's a big advantage. conclusion: I didn't like the book very much.

Rating:
Summary: Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft too much energy
Review: This is about the most boring and annoying book I've ever read. I don't now why but I have a preference for books who use still other words than Phoney, "old" and "goddamned". It is also perfect to ruin your day. Once you start reading this depressing novel from a boy who can't say a singular positive thing about his live, you can say goodbye to your happy feeling. There was only one positive thing about all this. I thought he put himself in a very strange position as a writer. He doesn't regard himself as being the all-knowing novelist, he puts himself kind of aside. You don't see that often. But than again, I think he's just trying to be the underdog, someone eccentric. Well, mister Caulfield, there are other ways besides just being negative about everything to get attention.

Rating:
Summary: Why God, why oh why
Review: The Catcher in the Rye is the worst book I've ever read. One reason I hated it was because we were forced to read this by our evil teacher. I would never read such crap, if I hadn't to. You would guess, when you start reading, that there are some good parts in this novel. There are none! How can you write almost 200 pages full of this nonsense. For instance, the main character is always feeling depressed and criticising everything and erveryone he meets. Two lines further, he says the person is killing him (being very funny). If he does that in one chapter, it's OK, but this keeps on going on and on for 26 chapters. It's the same with the events that happen in the book. Never anything excititing happens to the main character. Every chapter there is a new event and that drags on for almost 10 pages. Booooring!!! Another annoying thing is the language the main charcther uses. He always uses the same worths on and on. It's a slow reading book too. In short, the writer should be executed for wasting our time like that. Should make a good horror story too, his dead.

Rating:
Summary: What was he thinking about?
Review: If you would read a book about the life of a sixteen year old, you will think you'll be able to relate to the main character(if you're a teenager too). well, in "Catcher in the Rye" I didn't. I hope Holden wasn't such a miserable boy. He's just pathetic. Actually all the characters are very strange and I'm glad that I wasn't in Holden's place(if he really told the truth about those desperate characters).

I also find his style annoying. All that repeating of:"...and all, goddam, sonuvabitch,..." it drove me crazy. It seemed to be taking a lifetime to finish the whole story. I found it very boring.

The only good thing about the book was the happy end, otherwise I would have been just as depressed, after reading this book,as Holden was during the whole story.

I know there are much better novels about the experiences of teenagers. I think the main character of this book had a terrible, desperate and boring life. I don't look up to him. I don't get why he wrote his boring experiences on paper.

Rating:
Summary: have read better
Review: I read this book because I had to. But I heard from it before. Last year, at an other school, we read the beginning of the book and we watched a video in which several women told about J.D.Salinger's life. That was pretty interesting. But it was this year the same as last year, I didn't really like the book that much. I found the language difficult to read, it is probably spoken language, because he says all the time "...and all". The story however is good. It's about a 16-year old boy, Holden Cauldfield, who gets kicked out of school. He wants to leave school but doesn't want to go directly to his parents. He's afraid os their reaction, especially his mother's, who would probably freak out. All the things that happen between him leaving school and returning home are also likely to happen in real life. But I kind of hated the main character. I don't like the jargon he uses and he's always saying the same kind of things, like "really I'm not kidding", I can't stand that. However, it is possible that people recognise themselves in Holden, he is looking for himself, he's not sure who he is, and he may have things in common with some teenagers, but not with me. He is always depressed and I really don't like to read depressing books.

Rating:
Summary: it will catch you too
Review: After reading the first 20 pages, I thought " What a crumby book!" In the beginning I found it really difficult to keep on reading it, because of its long and difficult sentences, with a lot of symbolisme. But after a while, and after I had finished this book, I found it a quite amazing novel! Why? Because of several things.

Let's start with the style and the language of J.D.Salnger. I think his style is very different from any other book I've ever read in English. He has a, quite genius, way of telling everything very detailed and, in my opinion, very true. The use of his language annoyed me sometimes, because it consisted of a lot of repetition. He used words like 'crumby', 'old', 'buzz', a lot, and after a while, I hated that! The thing I did like was the way he sometimes wrote dialect words. For example: "wuddayacalit" or something like that. Then we have the characters of the book. For me, they were extremely realistic. Not that I had the need to identify myself with them, but I recognized all the different types in a certain way. I'm not saying that I liked them (I think Holden is a rather phony guy himself, to tell you the truth!), but I liked the way they were described and became realistic to me. Finally, I'm going to say something about the content of 'The catcher in the Rye" In my opinion, the story is both original as interesting. It wasn't a book that bored me after 10 pages, because it is full with adventures that Holden goes trough. I also liked Holden vision on everything. His remarks were often smart, to the point and well thought, although they were sometimes exaggerated and childish.

So, what I can conclude is that this novel has a lot of different qualities. Some of them are good and some not. But overall, the good qualities dominate and they make the book really worth reading. I wouldn't recommend this book to everyone, because it is written for a certain, young, public. The only thing for me that's left to say is: " All you youngsters out there, read this book and it will catch you to!"

M.Geerinckx Engels

Rating:
Summary: The Catcher in the Rye
Review: It wasn't the best book I ever read but, it was readable and though after a while when I decided to read in the book for a whole day it wasn't even boring anymore. It's lot easier to read the book in 2 days, otherwise it's hard to remember what the first capital is about ( if you read the book in 10 days or something). If you asked what the story was about, you can simply answer:"A guy leaves school and don't want to go home. He hang around and met new people and old friends. So the plot wasn't that good. It was a little bit simple. It were just the adventures of Holden spread over only 4 days. The language was a little bit strange for me. If you read such a strange word like 'sonuvabitch' and 'willya' you know what he means but you sometimes struggle with it.It didn't bothered me. You got used to it. There are a lot of persons in the book who hat only a small role. Sometimes Holden ( the main character ) mentioned them and then you have to think who was that girl, boy? But some persons were repeated by Holden, so that it became easier to understand, of who he was talking about. I liked the main character. I don't actually know why. Probably I liked just his attitude to the society.

I must confess that it wasn't a boring book, though I had to read it for school so it was obligated litterature. The other books in school or a lot more boring.

Rating:
Summary: It was a disappointment for me.
Review: I didn't like 'The Catcher in the Rye' a lot. Though there were a few good things I admired. The reason I dislike it, is because I can't compare myself with the 16-year old boy, who is feeling depressed all the time. I feel sorry for him that he has such a lousy life. But it's basically his own fault: he makes a mess of his life the whole time and he doesn't take anything serious. He just spends his parents' money. And I find it really pathetic that his only real friend is his sister! The use of language is always the same:he uses a lot of negative words. And the whole book is about 4days, it is way to detailed. And that gets boring after a while. The only positive thing I can say about it, is that I admire the fact that it was written in 1950 and still a lot of young people can compare themselves with it. So it's not the fact that I hate reading novels, but this one was just a disappointment for me.

Rating:
Summary: what a crumby book....
Review: This novel wasn't exactly one of my favourite books I've ever read however it wasn't too bad, just a little bit boring from time to time though. There isn't much to say about this book, I believe. it read easy, that's for sure but I truly hated the fact he had to use the following words/sentences over and over again, for example:... and all....and all; and suddenly I felt depressed; and suddenly I felt like giving OLD Jane a buzz;...especcialy this last sentence: instead of always saying it, just do it and don't repeat it constantly. In a way I was always expecting something to happen, it's like he wanted us to. instead he just told his enire history, ver detailed and with a lot of talking. Although he didn't do so very much during those 4 days, he makes it seem like a lot happened.

The main character, Holden, was a sweet guy; friendly, golden heart,...but so critical about everything and everyone. I wasn't impressed with Salinger's style too. It's all very realistic; the way Holden thinks and feels, the things that happen. but I prefer books with a little action in it, so... it was quite a good novel but I've read better, I mean it just isn't my style...