Book review - Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger

Hello there readers, by the title of this post you will have guessed that I am reviewing yet another book. I'm sorry for all of the book reviews and not much else at the moment, but I have a video filmed (and a blog post to go along with it), and two other posts planned which are not book related. Furthermore, I've been reading a lot more since exams finished and all that jazz. Anyway, today I am going to review a book that is considered a classic and by the title of this post you know that the book I am talking about is 'Catcher in the Rye' by J.D Salinger. I've wanted to read this book for a very long time because, if you didn't know I'm a massive beatlemanic, the person who killed John Lennon (Mark Chapman) claims that it was this book that made him kill John Lennon or it was a contributing factor, so I've always wanted to read this book to see whether his claim has any justification whatsoever and let me just say now it doesn't, nothing could justify the murder of John but even if something could - I don't think this could.

Does anyone else love the look of battered old books? This copy is so old it doesn't even have a barcode on it! Courtesy of my Dad (I think), just so you know my parents are massive book hoarders so lots of the books in my household are old and battered and very nice looking (to me)

Synopsis:

Holden Caulfield is a seventeen- year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Navigating his way through the challenges of growing up, Holden dissects the 'phony' aspects of society, and the 'phonies' themselves: the headmaster whose affability depends on the wealth of the parents, his roommate who scores with girls using sickly-sweet affection.

My thoughts:

I didn't really have any expectations going into this book, except I knew my Mum didn't like it and my Dad did, and I know Mark Chapman used this book to justify murdering John Lennon. My thoughts on this are clear and simple. I love the writing style, it's so easy to read. I would compare it to the likes of the Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, the only difference between the two books is that I didn't like the main character in this whereas in the Bell Jar I felt some sort of affinity to Esther. 

Okay so I said I don't like the main character. Holden doesn't really say anything nice about anybody, he doesn't really seem to care about anyone except a couple of relatives and a girl he knew from when he was younger. This put me off.. at first. Then I watched a video of John Green talking about the book, and he rightly pointed out that when we read a book we want to read about characters who we like or who we want to be which after watching I discovered that I think this is true for the most part. 

The actual story itself doesn't have any serious plot twists or drama in it, it simply follows the tale of Holden over a short period of time because he doesn't want his parents to know that he's been kicked out of yet another school, so he meets up with a few people from his past and essentially procrastinates going home. Nothing super dramatic happens to be honest, but the thing that makes this book interesting for me is the symbolism and basically getting inside the head of someone who has some issues to sort through (which is basically every character in a book ever)

The chapters are short (I found myself reading several in the space of one bus journey) and there aren't any words that I found hard to understand, so I would say pretty much anyone can read it however there are some sexual references (quite subtle in some parts but I looked up what some of his slang meant and I recommend you do the same if you don't understand what Holden means by 'chewing the fat' and so on..)

Overall rating:

Overall, I am going to give this book a 4/5. Yes, I didn't like Holden as a character. Yes, nothing very dramatic happens. What drew me into it and kept me reading it was the style of the book, it was like reading someone's personal journal, I found it so easy to visualise every scenario to the point that I could hear the voices of the characters in my head whilst reading it. What I am basically saying is, I would recommend it. If you look on goodreads you will see that the reviews are very mixed, some people say it's 1 star whilst others say it's 5. I think for a 5 star book, I need to be so gripped that I stop breathing and nearly die from oxygen starvation, but this isn't a terrible book so I think to rate it only 1 star is quite harsh. Seeming as the reviews are so mixed, I would say you have to read it to see - it's often compared to perks of being a wallflower (haven't read yet) and the bell jar for its writing style so if you like those books purely for the style go for it and I wish you well, if you refuse to read anything where the main character is anything other than what you want to see in a person then this may not be the book for you.

Have you read the Catcher in the Rye?