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jarida 's review for:
The Catcher in the Rye
by J.D. Salinger
I first read this book when I was in middle school, then again in high school, and now once more at 25. It has stirred so many emotions inside me over the years, but reading it as an adult made me feel especially somber.
When I first read it, I thought Holden was incredibly miserable, which immediately irritated me. His upbringing stood out to me as a child because he had luxuries I couldn’t afford. He was such an unlikable character, and it made me insecure about my own upbringing—especially when he pointed out the type of suitcase someone from a lower class would have or the kind of hat a poor man would wear when trying to look sharp. I’d imagine someone like Holden sitting in my seventh-grade classroom, observing the kids there, and I hated the thought of what he would say. The kids in my class all came from lower-middle-class families, yet they would bully each other and call each other poor if they didn’t have the newest Jordans. I hated Holden so much because I knew he would’ve laughed at them and probably considered all of them poor, even if they did have expensive Jordans. He probably would’ve said those were the types of shoes poor people got in order to seem more privileged. The way he talked about the lower class as if we were something to pity really bothered me.
Why was I so focused on this at such a young age? I also hated him for not wanting to grow up because, at the time, all I wanted was to grow up and finally have the nice things he had. Childhood, for me, always felt like a cage. I longed for adulthood—the freedom to say what I wanted, be who I wanted, and live how I wanted. Ultimately, I didn’t care about luxuries. I just cared about the freedom that adulthood would bring.
But as I kept reading, I began to understand that privilege doesn’t erase struggle. Our struggles may be different, and someone with less privilege may feel theirs more intensely, but Holden still struggled. I felt so bad knowing that he was grieving the loss of his brother. I began to see how deeply depressed he really was, and it reminded me of myself when I was 16, reading this book at a time when I was also starting to give up on my studies.
What made it even sadder was realizing why the book is called The Catcher in the Rye—because Holden wants to catch children before they fall off the metaphorical cliff into adulthood, before they lose their innocence. And that one moment, when he looks at Phoebe on the carousel and feels true happiness, is when he realizes that he can never stop it from happening. That moment broke me. And then, finding out in the end that he had been in a mental institution made me cry.
This book made me angry. It annoyed me. It made me laugh, cry, and question everything.
I apologize for the long review, but I tend to feel very passionately about the books I read, and I don’t really have anywhere else to express my thoughts and feelings about it.
When I first read it, I thought Holden was incredibly miserable, which immediately irritated me. His upbringing stood out to me as a child because he had luxuries I couldn’t afford. He was such an unlikable character, and it made me insecure about my own upbringing—especially when he pointed out the type of suitcase someone from a lower class would have or the kind of hat a poor man would wear when trying to look sharp. I’d imagine someone like Holden sitting in my seventh-grade classroom, observing the kids there, and I hated the thought of what he would say. The kids in my class all came from lower-middle-class families, yet they would bully each other and call each other poor if they didn’t have the newest Jordans. I hated Holden so much because I knew he would’ve laughed at them and probably considered all of them poor, even if they did have expensive Jordans. He probably would’ve said those were the types of shoes poor people got in order to seem more privileged. The way he talked about the lower class as if we were something to pity really bothered me.
Why was I so focused on this at such a young age? I also hated him for not wanting to grow up because, at the time, all I wanted was to grow up and finally have the nice things he had. Childhood, for me, always felt like a cage. I longed for adulthood—the freedom to say what I wanted, be who I wanted, and live how I wanted. Ultimately, I didn’t care about luxuries. I just cared about the freedom that adulthood would bring.
But as I kept reading, I began to understand that privilege doesn’t erase struggle. Our struggles may be different, and someone with less privilege may feel theirs more intensely, but Holden still struggled. I felt so bad knowing that he was grieving the loss of his brother. I began to see how deeply depressed he really was, and it reminded me of myself when I was 16, reading this book at a time when I was also starting to give up on my studies.
What made it even sadder was realizing why the book is called The Catcher in the Rye—because Holden wants to catch children before they fall off the metaphorical cliff into adulthood, before they lose their innocence. And that one moment, when he looks at Phoebe on the carousel and feels true happiness, is when he realizes that he can never stop it from happening. That moment broke me. And then, finding out in the end that he had been in a mental institution made me cry.
This book made me angry. It annoyed me. It made me laugh, cry, and question everything.
I apologize for the long review, but I tend to feel very passionately about the books I read, and I don’t really have anywhere else to express my thoughts and feelings about it.