What's so special about the catcher in the rye?

Question: What's so special about the catcher in the rye!?

As a somewhat disillusioned teenage, I thought I was suppose to be the target audience for this book, but I was left feeling rather disappointed!. Perhaps I need someone to explain why it is considered such an amazing read!.!.!.!?Www@QuestionHome@Com

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

I thought the same thing when reading it!.!.!. The love and affection towards this book has everything to do with the time period it came from rather then its lasting effect overall!. For the time, this book pushed the envelope and identified with an audience that felt disillusioned and had nothing to associate with!. However now, 50+ years later the target audience for this book doesn't really exist because the overall thoughts and ideas expressed are fairly light compared to what is available teenagers now cannot feel attached to a book about a middle class boy who is frustrated but slightly privileged and whiny!. SO its natural you don't feel a connection, you are someone living in a world vastly different than 1950's teenagers!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

It was considered daring for it's time, what with all the cuss words and sexual terms used!.

It's okay, but it's nothing that left a lasting effect on me because I don't even remember all the book!. I know when a book has left a lasting effect on me if I remember it super well--like I did with George Orwell's 1984, and I read that a year before I read Catcher in the Rye!.

I liked Holden, but he mostly brought everything upon himself, which I wasn't so impressed with!. Www@QuestionHome@Com

Like others said, it has to do with the time in which it was published!. It was very provocative then, but now it's nothing that we haven't heard before!. But I dunno, I liked reading it, because even though Holden's character was such a dick, he had a few redeeming qualities, like wanting to protect the children from growing up!. I liked how he saw that you get damaged as you grow up and how he wanted to protect kids like his sister from all the bad things in the world, like the "**** you"'s written on walls!. That was nice!.Www@QuestionHome@Com