The Catcher in the Rye in CLCSC Pasadena Area Book Group

Aug 02, 2018 Nick rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult-fiction

This book was a YA classic before there was a recognized YA field for books.
It is well written, but I really didn't like the central character, and it took me a while to figure out why. He's kind of broken, but we never see enough of his life to understand why. Yes, he lost one of his brothers, but that wasn't unusual at the time the book was taking place, which seems to be the World War II period. What felt weird about this is that Holden doesn't really care or express himself about anything of This book was a YA classic before there was a recognized YA field for books.
It is well written, but I really didn't like the central character, and it took me a while to figure out why. He's kind of broken, but we never see enough of his life to understand why. Yes, he lost one of his brothers, but that wasn't unusual at the time the book was taking place, which seems to be the World War II period. What felt weird about this is that Holden doesn't really care or express himself about anything of significance. He doesn't like most other people, but has no redeeming traits himself, other than that he cares about his little sister. He's mostly a self-made loser. That makes his viewpoints difficult to care about.
The story in this one is that he's been kicked out of yet another school, and has to go home and let his parents know, over Christmas break. Because he doesn't actually think about anything before he does it, he leaves school a couple of days early and has to kill time before arriving home, for reasons that make sense only to him.
There are hints that something isn't right with him, but it's hard to care just what. The only time we see genuine emotion out of him is in one flashback and in his interactions with his sister. The rest of the time, either he really doesn't care about anything, or he's pretending he doesn't.
As a teen navigating a world he didn't make and may not really care about, the story that he narrates has some interesting bits, but I felt glad that the book wasn't longer. On the other hand, as a book that is mostly a snapshot of a few days in a life, there are some excellent bits, and some glimmers that Holden knows that he's out of his depth, but doesn't know how to set things right, and maybe he's only pretending that he doesn't care. On the OTHER other hand, he keeps running away from anyone who cares about him, or wants to help him, and his excuses become pretty feeble over the course of the story. Yes, the one class he describes is pretty stupidly taught, but what about the rest? Were they all bad, at every school? We don't know, and can't trust his version of things, anyway. ...more

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