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wolfiegrrrl 's review for:
The Catcher in the Rye
by J.D. Salinger
tense
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I, like many, had to read this book for an English Literature class in high school and I hated every second of it. I had so much trouble understanding anything the narration was trying to convey because Holden curses practically every other word to the point where expletives may have been overused intentionally but holy moly was it such an unnecessary struggle. Trying to separate the language from the action in my head to answer simple questions about the chapters on the reading quizzes was impossible, so I have a grudge against this horrible book for being indecipherable.
My fondness for unreliable narrators does not extend to Holden, unfortunately. I can analyze this book until I'm blue in the face and my fingers fall off, but it won't make me like this book or care about any of its characters any more. The only piece of information I thought was interesting was how Holden wears a hunting hat that covers his ears to symbolically represent how he has stopped listening and shut himself off from society. He's a struggling teen who desperately needs some decent therapy to help him sort his brain out and get his life together in a world that's dark and messy and often unforgiving. But he's also a hypocrite, the biggest phony of the whole circus, a liar - to himself, to the readers, and to everyone around him - so the fact that I couldn't tell for sure in the book if he really intended to go to an appointment or if it was just another thing he said for the sake of saying it frustrated me to no end.
What it really comes down to is my dislike for the particular writing style executed here and the irredeemably unlikeable narrator, which by default makes everyone else in his story unlikeable too because we're only seeing them through his jaded perception even though I genuinely can't remember finding anything wrong with most of them. Perhaps if I read this book again now, I might find something else to walk away from it with, but I doubt I can ever make myself touch it again.
My fondness for unreliable narrators does not extend to Holden, unfortunately. I can analyze this book until I'm blue in the face and my fingers fall off, but it won't make me like this book or care about any of its characters any more. The only piece of information I thought was interesting was how Holden wears a hunting hat that covers his ears to symbolically represent how he has stopped listening and shut himself off from society. He's a struggling teen who desperately needs some decent therapy to help him sort his brain out and get his life together in a world that's dark and messy and often unforgiving. But he's also a hypocrite, the biggest phony of the whole circus, a liar - to himself, to the readers, and to everyone around him - so the fact that I couldn't tell for sure in the book if he really intended to go to an appointment or if it was just another thing he said for the sake of saying it frustrated me to no end.
What it really comes down to is my dislike for the particular writing style executed here and the irredeemably unlikeable narrator, which by default makes everyone else in his story unlikeable too because we're only seeing them through his jaded perception even though I genuinely can't remember finding anything wrong with most of them. Perhaps if I read this book again now, I might find something else to walk away from it with, but I doubt I can ever make myself touch it again.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Mental illness