OK, before I continue with this post, I would like to establish that I am speaking with a somewhat biased opinion, the title did not intrigue me, and then after all the high praise for the book that I heard when I noted the boring title I had set my expectations rather high.
The entire book was about a boy named Holden Caulfield, a person who recently got kicked out of Pency academy. The book tells the story of his leaving Pencey and heading home, and taking his time doing it.
Holden is a very peculiar person to say the least. He is almost perpetually depressed, and can't make up his mind about anything. He is also a a self-confessed compulsive liar, which raises the question of if any of this actually happened. It COULD be one huge lie that Holden is telling for his own entertainment, or for some other random reason that may or may not exist, an interesting thought isn't it? Unless Holden was lying about his being a compulsive liar, which would make the story true. Which would mean he IS a compulsive liar...
Despite the little paradox I just presented, the entirety of the book was rather unexciting for me. Despite Holden being so peculiar, I didn't much like his peculiarity, and his manner of speech was odd, and rather dirty, I'd get myself into a lot of trouble if I suddenly started speaking like Holden.
However, perhaps my perception of the book would have been different if I wasn't looking for the reason a friend of my Dad named his son Holden to honor the book. After hearing THAT my expectations were somewhat on a god-like writing level, seeing as even my favorite books would never inspire me to do something like that. Since the writer of this book was obviously not god I guess I was setting myself up to be disappointed.
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