Abandoned by Booklikes

I honestly don't know where to begin with this mess of a novel. It was repetitive and boring. The main character had his head up his own ass through this entire book, which is not surprising since he is a teenager. I know that I was supposed to probably sit around afterwards and discuss how profound I found everything. I instead rolled my eyes and just dismissed the book as soon as I finished with it.

This is a coming of age story of Holden Caulfield. After being told that he will be expelled because of his lack of work at his private school, Holden goes to New York City so that he can have some time to break it to his parents he has been booted from another school.

Holden is lazy and critical of everyone around him. Heck there were several profound comments that he made about pimply guys and ugly girls that just made him sound like such an awesome person to be around, one wonders why he has no close friends.

I think that J.D. Salinger was definitely going for something here I think to speak about how so many teens feel alienated from the world and people around them. But I didn't get the sense that Holden was alienated, just bored with everyone because he held everyone except for his sister, and his two brothers in total disdain.

The writing was not great. It was repetitive to the point that I was able to totally call what Holden was going to say. I never want to hear the words "They really can" ever again.

That's the thing about girls.
Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are.
Girls.
Jesus Christ.
They can drive you crazy.
They really can

You poor thing. Falling in love with a girl that is not attractive and dumb. And yet they still don't want you.

Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad.

So profound. I mean I hardly rolled my eyes that hard after I read this.

The flow was also pretty awful. I think it was because the story just went on and on and on to the point I was rooting for a bad end for Holden. Can you tell that I couldn't stand this character?

The setting of New York honestly didn't feel real at all. Maybe because Holden was so far up his own butt, the only thing that gets described are other people (specifically girls/women) and how attractive they are or in the case of this book, how ugly he finds them.

The ending I think was supposed to make me think. It just once again made me roll my eyes hard. What can one say about a character that I don't think matures at all, and still sees the problems with everyone and not himself.