Rating: 
Summary: Everyone needs to read this book
Review: i have always heard about this book but never actually read it. then one day my junior year in HS i saw it lying somewhere under a seat and decided why the heck not? so i took it...after reading this book in two days i fell in love and decided to keep it. the only thing that upsets me is that the cover is plain and boring yet the story behind it isnt at all. i have read this book many times over and over and it is the best classic i have ever read. i recommend this book to everyone. Holden Caulfield is one character you wont forget.
Rating: 
Summary: Probably the only classic I ever enjoyed!!
Review: I have been forced to read many terrible books in school and this is the only one that I truly liked and is one of my favorite books I have ever read. It's very enjoyable but can be hard to understand. You have to read between the lines for this one.
Rating: 
Summary: NOT a classic
Review: I have been hearing about this book ever since the mid Eighties. I finally bought it and read it - and although it was not the worst book I have read, it was no classic either.
The hero is a regular teenager, from a well to do white family, who leaves boarding school and goes around more or less aimlessly for a few days. He is of course confused, and full of thoughts, which may have caused a sensation 50 years ago, but is a cliche today. There is nothing truly rebellious about him.
A classic to me is a book that stands the test of time. This book has certainly failed to maintain its initial relevance over the years. Still, it is not too bad as a regular adolescence book.
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Summary: This book IS different
Review: I have been reading many of the reviews on this page, some critical, some positive, and I have condensed the opinions to the following. Those who don't like the book seem to think that the book is disconnected, swears too frequently, or has no plot. Now, I realize that some negative reviewers have differing opinions, and I respect them, because the book is different from most literature, classic or otherwise.Most literature describes an event, using the characters to interact with their surroundings. There is a defined plot, there is a defined theme, the people do normal things, and everybody who reads it gets pretty much the same thing from it. For an example, I'll quickly examine a well-known piece of literature, "A Christmas Carol" by Dickens. I am not going to go into great detail, I am not an expert on this work, but when I say "A Christmas Carol" you see ghosts, kids with canes, and London. If asked "what is it about" you might say, "the redemption of Scrooge" okay great. Everyone agrees, discussion ended. "The Catcher in the Rye" is not like that. People with literal minds hate books like this, because everyone who reads it, takes something different from it. These people say, "nothing happens, the symbolism was great, but there was no plot". To them I say, "Who cares?". I want to meet the person who declared that every book needs clearly defined plot, theme and grammar, to be good. Writing is about more than following the proper steps. A monkey can be taught to follow steps, a third grade student can learn to fill in blanks. Writing is about communicating. Some critics look at a work of Dickens and say, "Now, there's a good book, that's how writing is to be done. All the concepts are well thought out, the grammar is letter-perfect, and the word choice is outstanding!" And that is great for them, I'm excited that they feel this way, now we know that there is yet another job that a computer can be taught to do, critique literature based on grammar, punctuation and spelling. These rules are rules we give our elementary students so they can be understood when they write. If you want to buy a book, so you can examine grammar and word usage, don't buy this one. Salinger didn't sit down to write a book for his college English professor. If you want to look at his work from that standpoint, then it would be an awful book. Fortunately for the human race, writing is not about that at all. Writing is not only about being understood, writing is about feeling, writing is about telling another human being, what an experience is like. This is what Salinger has done. He has captured the teenage experience, the anger, the frustration, the disappointment, the feeling of hopelessness, the paranoia, and the feeling of looking out at society and realizing that it's not a nice place to be. Salinger did not write about the idea teenager, if he did, Holden would've sounded like a member of the Brady Bunch "The world is a happy place". Often, people like to rationalize what happened in this book, by saying, "Holden is sick, he is unusual, nobody else goes through this" this is not the case. True, Holden did move to California, apparently to seek some type of counseling, but he is far from unusual, he is truthful to himself, he is telling about the world the way it is, not the way he wants it to be. In the book, Salinger is communicating to two types of people. On one hand he is telling the people whose lives have been like Holden's that someone understands them. Someone else has been though what you've been through, it's a normal thing. And he is telling the Brady Bunch people "WAKE UP! Take off your rosy colored glasses, the world is NOT one big happy place, at least not for everyone. Yes, somewhere in the distance, there is war and hunger, but there is something more, and it's right next to you. There are people who can't find the most basic human need, the need to be loved and accepted." Holden feels lost and alone, he feels like nobody cares about him, he feels rejected by his family, and he feels hopeless because he everyone and everything he knows either lets him down, or lies to him. This is real life, this is what it's like to have everything not go your way. If you are looking for fairy tale or soap opera, this is the wrong book. You also shouldn't read this book if you are going to use a holier-than-thou attitude and judge everything that is wrong. To read this book, you need to be realistic, and empathetic. This book is about the bad side of life, it can sometimes be hard to follow, and you may reach the end and wonder what happens next. Read it a few times in that case, you may learn that this kind of writing is not about what happens next, it's about what already happened, and most importantly; why?
Rating:
Summary: Jesus Christ!
Review: I have been reading these reviews and I don't think one single person really gets what the hell Salinger was trying to say. I don't know myself! Personally, I think that Holden is bi-polar because his moods fluxuate so rapidly. This is made worse by the death and continued grief of his brother Allie. Also, I think it's important to mention the part where Holden is staying at a former teacher's house and wakes to find the man stroking his hair. Later, Holden says that that sort of perverty thing had happened to him a lot when he was a child. So what I think we have here is a bi-polar teenager who has been molested and has never gotten over his brother's death. That would screw anyone up. Don't you think?
Rating: 
Summary: Here plot... come here....
Review: I have been reading this book the past couple days, I only have about sixty pages left. And I'm still looking desperately for a plot. It's amazing that a two hundred plus page book can be so popular when there is no plot that I can see. The entire thing, as far as I can see, is about this messed up kid that isn't happy unless he swears twice a sentence. He's obsessed with getting laid and that dumb duck thing. My English teacher says it has some metaphorical meaning, but I don't see it. I only give it two stars because it is well written, there's great voice in the book, it sounds like a real person is there narrating it orally. I dunno, maybe it'll get better, but I doubt the last sixty pages can redeem the first hundred and fifty.
Rating: 
Summary: The Catcher In The Rye
Review: I have been wanting to read "Catcher In The Rye" for the past three years. The moment I actually picked up the book, I regretted every moment I had spent wanting to find pleasure in the story. I understand Holden. He is like a normal 15 year old boy. Trying to fit in, not knowing his place in the world; but his techniques with whining and always befuddling the world around him got tiring after the first three chapters. God forbid someone acts like a 'phony' for even one second of their life around Holden. I would have liked this book better if it had some sort of technique thrown into it, and perhaps a specific goal that was worth going through all two hundred and something pages. Yes, the ending was a bit of a surprise but not enough to be handed a 'spectacular realistic ending' title to it. If you like reading more realistic, based on what could really happen in your youth life books, then I recommend this. But if you are a heavy reader and are more sought out to read things with more integrity, intelligence and adventure, then this book is not for you.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting book
Review: I have come to the conclusion that, no matter how good the book, when i am forced to read something for an english assignment, i never can never enjoy the author's writings. I am a sophomore and i was assigned Cather in the Rye earlier this year. I found the language whiny and aggrevating. However, when i reread the novel, i realized that my original opinion was incorrect. While Holden can become aggrevating with his over use of the word "phoney", he is a character that i think any teenager can relate with at some point in their life. As a teenager, i do relate with Holden and i can understand his resentment of change. I have come to realize that my first analysis of the book, was completley incorrect and i can now read cather in the rye and enjoy it!
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Summary: Holden Caulfield was not a bad boy and this is a great book!
Review: I have got quite a big personal library during the years. At some stage I bought both The Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger, but never got around to read them. Finally on a trip to Europe a couple of months ago, stopping in New York on the way, I packed The Catcher in the Rye in my luggage. As it is set in New York I started reading it on the plane from New York to London. And did I enjoy it?! Man, what have I been thinking, waiting so long? I got so much on terms with Holden Caulfield, that I started to write like him in a couple of letters I wrote. The evening I arrived in London there was a brilliant documentary about J.D. Salinger on TV. I was totally absorbed, and enjoyed every page of the book, admired Salinger's portrayal of adolescence. Such a comic and touching novel. I continued to read it on the train up north through Sweden and at some stage laughed so much I had to put the book down - people were looking strangely at me. They just fitted into the book, had probably never read it. I have and I loved every bit of it. Not to be missed, so don't wait, just go ahead and read it!
Rating:
Summary: This is a literary masterpiece?
Review: I have heard people rave about how wonderful this book is and I must ask...why? Aside from it being written in a style that a teenager speaks, quite annoying frankly, this book was a bore. If there was symbolism, I didn't catch it. As far as characters go, I like Phoebe better than Holden. I wanted to give up on this book after the first two or three chapters but I read on waiting for the excitement to begin. Needless to say, I was disappointed.
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