Rating: 
Summary: Hilarious and sad
Review: Holden Caulfield cocks a skeptical eye on everything "phony" in mid-20th century American life. He's a flawed but funny narrator.Also recommended: Too Much of Nothing, by Michael Scott Moore, for a sharp take on pretense and high school in the mid-1980s.
Rating:
Summary: fiction or biography
Review: holden caulfield has a very narrow point of view of the world. but it is very real. sometimes i am caught up in the same way. i think of holden and i snap out of it. caulfield is so real that i wonder if this book is really fiction. salinger could be writing about himself or someone very close.
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Summary: An Entertaining, Funny, Book!!
Review: Holden Caulfield has gone down as one of the funniest, most relatable, and most realistic characters in literature in thousands of minds (or at least in my mind). He is a brazen torch for originality of spirit, and this book is his voice. For anyone with questions in their soul, this book should shed some light.
Rating: 
Summary: Becoming a Madman
Review: Holden Caulfield is a 16-year-old boy completely disconnected from the world around him. While he claims to feel sorry for others he states that he is "depressed" by almost everything that others say and do. Unfortunately, he battles his problems without anyone to turn to for help because he is far away at a boarding school called Pencey Prep.
Because Holden was not willing to put any effort into his schoolwork, however, he was soon kicked out. Nor was this the first time. Holden had attended other such schools, like Elkton Hills and Whooton School, but he failed to thrive there also.
After leaving Pencey, Holden returned to New York City to relax before he returned to his parents. Throughout the days he slept at a hotel where he was cheated out of five dollars and Mr. Antolini's house where he was patted on his head while sleeping, which in his mind deemed Antolini a child molester.
Despite all of these encounters Holden was not ready to go home until his kid sister, Phoebe, showed desire to emulate him. He had made plans to run away somewhere and get a job, but decided otherwise when Phoebe begged to join him. This is the only instance in which he showed shame for the life he was leading. He promised Phoebe that he would come home and he did.
Finally, Holden is sent to an institution where he can get help and he begins to realize that it is one thing to say you will do something and another to actually do it.
Rating:
Summary: Teenage Pitfall
Review: Holden Caulfield is a 16-year-old boy gone a little too far over the edge. He is obviously seemingly normal (or at least relatively so) to those around him, but his thoughts can be so twisted that they disturb the mind. Ironically, Holden is the always trying to analyze other people, when he is the one who truly needs the help.
There is an eerie sort of symbolism in Holden's words and actions. The red hat, the baseball mitt, and the turtleneck sweater, all have a certain significance. He focuses on these things because of their importance in his relationship with others.
While Holden often claims to feel sorry for others, his depression creates even more sympathy for him. In time he sinks to such a low level that no one understands him anymore. He is isolated from his family and friends, first mentally, and then physically.
Rating:
Summary: This book just killed me.
Review: Holden Caulfield is a confused teenager who is trying to find out who he is and where he fits in. He thinks that he is an adult, but he really does not have the skills to be one. He narrates the story of several of the gloomiest days in his sixteen-year-old life as a flashback. The story begins when Holden is expelled from prep school for poor grades. Because he had flunked out of three or four other schools, he waited around in New York City for the day when all of his classmates went to Christmas vacation before he went home to break the news of his expulsion to his parents. In those several days, he gets drunk, goes on dates, wanders the streets and even sneaks a visit to his apartment to visit his sister, Phoebe. Holden tells Phoebe that what he really wants to do is be the catcher in the rye; that when all of the little kids were playing games in the rye he would be the person to catch the kids before they fell off the cliff. He wouldn't play the games with the kids, but he would just help them to not fall off the cliff. This means that Holden felt like an outsider and longed to be included, but deep in his heart he really wanted to help people.
Holden Caulfield's cynical attitude toward everybody and everything gives him the different personality that he has and makes his story a good read. At times you just laugh at the book because some of the things he does are so stupid and thickheaded. In the end, you will find that Holden Caulfield is a troubled boy who thinks that the world is out to get him and make him do things that he does not want to do.
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous
Review: Holden Caulfield is a cynic in every sense of the word, but beneath his abrasive and self-depreciating nature resides an intelligent, insightful, misunderstood teenager, who embodies the awkwardness of adolescence. Full of contradictions, Holden remains my favorite protagonist. Although he swears 'like a sailor', the thought of children being exposed to profanity sickens him. He thinks he's a nymphomaniac, yet he's a virgin. Throughout the novel, Holden voices his hatred for 'phonies', and at times it seems that Holden embodies that which he despises. As the book opens, Holden is failing out of his prestigious boarding school full of phonies. He decides to arrive home early for Christmas vacation. Thus begins his odyssey toward his beloved sister, Phoebe.
J.D. Salinger is a literary genius. His ability to capture human behavior is astounding. The Catcher in the Rye is one of my all time favorite books; I read it every Christmas. Brutally honest, hysterically comical and heart-breakingly tragic all at the same time, The Catcher in the Rye is a rare achievement in literature.
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Summary: Catcher in the Rye Review
Review: Holden Caulfield is a depressed nervous boy who undergoes a rough learning process following his expulsion from school. His complicated situation is caused by his continuing search for a true meaning or quality of life. Holden is tired of the "phonies" that surround and have daily contact with him. He looses interest in school and quickly falls into trouble. Failing to maintain his grades in private school force him to be dropped from the program entirely. Holden then commences his search for his true self and wanders the streets of New York while battling his growing depression. He meets new people and runs into past acquaintances that simply confuse him even deeper rather than helping him sort out his emotions. At one point, Holden tries to just go home but cannot bear his mother's disapproval and his father's constant lecturing. Instead, Holden goes to the one person who seems to be able to clear his mind of troubles, his sister Phoebe. Holden's depression is temporarily lifted during a conversation with Phoebe, but quickly returns and forces him to move on. Holden experiences both mental and physical trauma and realizes that he must find professional help soon, which is exactly what he ends up doing.
Holden Caulfield is my favorite character. He represents what most teenagers go through at one point or another. I can very much relate to him. I have also run into the "phony" people that Holden did. "Phony" people are those who appear to be one thing when they are clearly another. These "phonies" portray false images to gain acceptance in the crowd. These false people end up hurting themselves and sometimes the ones surrounding them. I understand Holden's disgust towards these false people and appearances.
I like this book very much. My favorite part is when Holden returns to his hotel room after a night of heavy drinking and socializing. He meets Maurice the bellboy on his way up on the elevator. Maurice is secretly an amateur pimp. He agrees to send a girl up to Holden's room in a few minutes. What I like about this part of the book is the whole action and dialogue coming from Holden. He really acts like a drunken 16-year-old. When the girl finally arrives, she has a fight with Holden over her price. Maurice ends up having to come up to the room and punch the lights out of Holden. I think it is a very well developed story with an excellent plot and great characters.
I honestly recommend this book to every one. It will give readers a chance to look inside the developing mind of a 16-year-old boy and see what it goes through. Parents and teenagers alike will enjoy this book very much.
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Summary: The kid we all hated in high school.
Review: Holden Caulfield is a pimply, foul mouthed, sixteen year old kid who believes with all of his heart that just about everyone and everything in his life is a "phoney". He thinks, of course, he is great, but no one understands him. His teachers stink. He goes to school. Many schools. In fact, today we would call Holden a "loser". Yet I believe the story is given to high schoolers often to read because of it's very "unphoney" coming of age of young Mr. Holden Caulfield. Thankfully, not all teenagers are like Holden, who comes from a well-to-do family, with a dead brother he loved and a little sister he adores. He is a poignant protagonist, and if read in the right light, can tug at your heartstrings as you begin to sense the isolation and loneliness that has lived with him for a very long time, I sense since his older brother Allie passed away. When Allie died, Holden was old enough to recall himself smashing all the windows in the garage and breaking his hand that night. Holden, though not the epitome of a teenager, is an alienated, sad, individual who builds his armor by swearing and chain smoking and not believing in life at all. We hear about Holden first at his latest school, Pencey, and those last few days at Pencey describe much of adolescent life during the early nineteen forties. Abrasive even today, nevertheless it is a book not to missed, and one to be remembered.
Rating:
Summary: excellent book
Review: Holden Caulfield is a troubled teen. He gets kicked out of yet another boarding school and is afraid to let his parents know, so he goes back to New York and lives on his own for a while. His younger brother died as a child, and his kid sister is wise beyond her years. He doesn't respect many people, but he respects his sister. Throughout the story, you really feel like you know Holden. The way Salinger wrote the book, the reader can picture this cynical 17-year-old sitting across from you telling his story, slang and all. Narrated by Holden, the story is a look into the teenage mind and a source of release for teens. In the story, he states what he feels about people and things. He describes in such detail what people do, why it bothers him, and when he's nervous, you can feel the sweat trickling down your own tense face. This novel by JD Salinger was absolutely phenomenal. It is a great book for frustrated teens who feel strongly about things they don't think anyone else does. I understand why this book would be banned, reading the language and some content, but overrall this is an excellent book. Other teens my age are still reading The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, but I prefer to read this story. It is not only a teenage boy, Holden Caulfield, telling about his messed up life, it is a portrait of humanity. reading this book, I was captivated by the descriptions of people, places, and events in the book. I was surprised and pleased to see that other people feel the same way I do. This book was also very infuencial to me. I don't mean that I got expelled from my school or began mixing in one swear word for every five other words, but I began to feel what was going on around me. I do things I want to, like Holden wearing the weird hat regardless of others, appreciating my kid sister, and I even started saying "it kills me" at brief intervals like the main character. Take it from me, this book is good.
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