Book Review: The Catcher in the Rye

I know it's not just me, but this book left me scratching my head and wondering why I was told that this book was a classic literary work. I also wondered why I had to read it in high school. I hadn't picked up a copy of The Catcher in the Rye since it was assigned in my sophomore year English class, roughly 13 years ago. I could barely remember anything about the book and it was selling for $0.25 so I figured, "what the heck?!" Boy I sure was disappointed.

Ok, ok. So the book is a great character study. Frankly, Holden Caufield is a neurotic, narcissistic, ridiculous attempt at a hero and not someone I would want to encourage teenagers to emulate. He hates everyone. He hates everything. He repeats himself constantly. He "gets sore" about everything. He has a drinking problem at the age of 16. He fails out of every school he attends because there are "fake people" everywhere - he likes the word "phony". In my opinion, this story shouldn't have been revolutionary when it was told the first time and it's certainly far from revolutionary now. What a big, fat disappointment.