Book Review: The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye is an all-time classic in coming-of-age literature- an elegy to teenage alienation, capturing the deeply human need for connection and the bewildering sense of loss as we leave childhood behind.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
It’s Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school. Fleeing the
crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters – shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning. The Catcher in the Rye is an all-time classic in coming-of-age literature- an elegy to teenage alienation, capturing the deeply human need for connection and the bewildering sense of loss as we leave childhood behind.

REVIEW BY DANIA: Not Yet

OTHER INFORMATION:
The novel was included on Time’s 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. It was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Between 1961 and 1982, The Catcher in the Rye was the most censored book in high schools and libraries in the United States. The book was briefly banned in the Issaquah, Washington, high schools in 1978 when three members of the School Board alleged the book was part of an “overall communist plot.”

TRIGGER WARNINGS:
1. Alcohol (underage)
2. Ableism
3. Assault
4. Blood
5. Death
6. Depression
7. Diarrhoea
8. Emesis
9. Homophobia
10. Institutionalisation (implied)
11. Pedophilia (implied)
12. Prostitution
13. Racism
14. Rape (implied)
15. Robbery
16. Sex
17. Sexism
18. Sexual harassment
19. Shooting/gun violence
20. Slurs/outdated terms (racial, ethnic, homophobic)
21. Smoking (underage)
22. Suicide
23. Suicide ideation
24. Violence
25. Violent fantasies

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