The Catcher in the Rye is a very well-known book by J.D. Salinger. Please click one of the tabs above to learn more.

The following are reviews from the average reader for the book:

"I read this book as required reading when I was in high school, and it all but changed my life. It let me know that the alienation and isolation that come with being a teenager are normal and I almost felt like I had found a friend in Holden Caulfield. I read it at just the right time in my life, and each time I've read it thereafter I remember why I loved it so much the first time."

"My theory as to this book's unusually polarizing nature: either you identify with Holden Caulfield or you don't. Those who see themselves (either as they were or, God help them, as they are) in Holden see a misunderstood warrior-poet, fighting the good fight against a hypocritical and unfeeling world; they see in Salinger a genius because he gets it, and he gets them. Those of us who don't relate to Holden see in him a self-absorbed whiner, and in Salinger, a one-trick-pony who lucked into performing his trick at a time when some large fraction of America happened to be in the right collective frame of mind to perceive this boring twaddle as subversive and meaningful."

"My favorite line: "All I need's an audience. I'm an exhibitionist. 'I'm the goddamn Governor's son,' I said. I was knocking myself out. Tap-dancing all over the place. "He doesn't want me to be a tap dancer. He wants me to go to Oxford. But it's in my goddam blood, tap-dancing."