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A review by naptune24
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
dark
funny
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
This was a classic I hadn’t read and right off the bat I was in. The straight forward language, at times obscene, really drew me in. I thought this would be an easy read but the charm quickly wore away and I became annoyed while finishing this. The next part of my review is going to read exactly like the book. - This goddamn book. With a pretty lousy main character Holden Caulfield and all. Look, I’m just saying he’s a phony. In the first place, he can’t even pretend he isn’t a phony. Old Holden doesn’t even know it. What a crumby kid. Why in the hell did he talk about Jane so much and then not do anything about it? I tell ya, that was really annoying. Really annoying. It kills me. Like this goddamn book. Blah blah blah-
Anyways. I know there’s some underlying messages here, about being lost in adolescence, dealing with unprocessed grief, the coming of age and being disgusted with humanity. But whatever the message, this writing style, being inside Holden’s head, drove me up the wall. He had so many redundant thoughts and he is maybe the most hyperbolic character in literary history. It drove me fucking crazy that he constantly exaggerated time frames (i.e “the whole deal took 10 hours” when it actually took 5 minutes) it made it confusing as a reader and worst of all gave me false hope that there was actual passage of time happening because this book fucking dragged on and on and the whole time only like 2 fucking days had passed!!! Are you joking!! Anyways, it made me chuckle a couple times. Also sometimes I felt like I was reading Trump’s inner monologue which is funny because Holden is an angsty 17 year old boy but also ruined the book for me even more because I couldn’t stop noticing how much his cadence mirrored Trump. I wonder if anyone else had that same experience??? Anyway I’d say not to read this book, that the author should get a better editor or something but J.D Salinger is most certainly dead because this book is like a million years old. I think I’m done trying to read books written by long deceased white men. Serves me right. Goodbye.
Anyways. I know there’s some underlying messages here, about being lost in adolescence, dealing with unprocessed grief, the coming of age and being disgusted with humanity. But whatever the message, this writing style, being inside Holden’s head, drove me up the wall. He had so many redundant thoughts and he is maybe the most hyperbolic character in literary history. It drove me fucking crazy that he constantly exaggerated time frames (i.e “the whole deal took 10 hours” when it actually took 5 minutes) it made it confusing as a reader and worst of all gave me false hope that there was actual passage of time happening because this book fucking dragged on and on and the whole time only like 2 fucking days had passed!!! Are you joking!! Anyways, it made me chuckle a couple times. Also sometimes I felt like I was reading Trump’s inner monologue which is funny because Holden is an angsty 17 year old boy but also ruined the book for me even more because I couldn’t stop noticing how much his cadence mirrored Trump. I wonder if anyone else had that same experience??? Anyway I’d say not to read this book, that the author should get a better editor or something but J.D Salinger is most certainly dead because this book is like a million years old. I think I’m done trying to read books written by long deceased white men. Serves me right. Goodbye.