The Catcher in The Rye - Review

As I said in a previous post, I am doing English Literature as an AS-Level. This will involve book reviews, this is one I have written.

The Catcher in the Rye-

J.D Salinger

With a troubled, lonely and angry teenager being the voice of the novel, this book gives the view of adolescence and problems that could come with it. The title itself doesn’t suggest much of the book, which makes you curious to read it; hence this makes a popular book to read.

Holden Caulfield is a 16-year-old who hates school, hates ‘fake’ people and hates most things about the modern life. This is shown from the beginning of the book with him describing his childhood to be ‘lousy.’ This gives the reader an immediate insight into how annoyed with the world this character is. Though this works well in the book, I don’t feel as if his view of life particularly developed much from this. Therefore, personally, I found this quite depressing as it showed many problems with the world rather than positive things that I feel could have be focused on. However, this is quite interesting in a book and is therefore a fresh read.

With Holden hating education, he has been kicked out of yet another school. It is the basis of this, and not wanting to face more of his parent’s disappointment, that he decides to go on his travels...  This led for loads of adventures within the book, as well as the reader being able to learn more about the character.  Though this sounds like it would be brilliant basis of a book, with excitement being at is heart, none of the adventures felt any more significant than the last. Therefore I feel like the book had little plot, apart from a teenager who constantly finds problems with his life. Again, I felt this was quite depressing to read.

Though it was written well, and it felt like it was written by the teenager itself, this book didn’t really live up to my expectations. However I can see why it would appeal to many people. It is enlightening, well written with wonderful language and is just an unusual book. It was, sadly, just not my cup of tea though.