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A review by bibliorey
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
4.0
the rebellious teenage angst in holden that i found to be a glimpse of my younger self was so uncomfortable to read and reminisce that i can barely imagine the thoughts running through others’ mind when i was a “holden” myself. although finding the empathy for holden seems hard as he is probably one of the most pessimistic characters i have ever read of, with the emotional turmoil he was dealing with — especially towards the final parts of the story — i can somewhat understand why he is the way that he is. it’s also a nice commentary on how much us adults have an impact to young and impressionable minds. to “strike while the iron is hot”. holden’s bad decision making and habits are somewhat explained by the influences of people he has chosen to surround himself with and in a way — albeit a bad one — it’s just a part of growing up.
as taylor swift once said in her speech, “life can be heavy, especially if you try to carry it all at once. part of growing up and moving into new chapters of your life is about catch and release. what i mean by that is, knowing what things to keep, and what things to release. you can’t carry all things, all grudges [...] decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go. [...] in your life, you will inevitably misspeak, trust the wrong people, underreact, overreact, hurt the people who didn’t deserve it, overthink, not think at all, self-sabotage, create a reality where only your experience exists, ruin perfectly good moments for yourself and others, deny any wrongdoing, not take the steps to make it right, feel very guilty, let the guilt eat at you, hit rock bottom, finally address the pain you caused, try to do better next time, rinse, repeat. and i’m not gonna lie, these mistakes will cause you to lose things. i’m trying to tell you that losing things doesn’t just mean losing. a lot of the time, when we lose things, we gain things too.”
although that very part of the speech is perfect to describe every coming-of-age experience, reading through holden’s story simply reminds me of this part of the speech
as taylor swift once said in her speech, “life can be heavy, especially if you try to carry it all at once. part of growing up and moving into new chapters of your life is about catch and release. what i mean by that is, knowing what things to keep, and what things to release. you can’t carry all things, all grudges [...] decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go. [...] in your life, you will inevitably misspeak, trust the wrong people, underreact, overreact, hurt the people who didn’t deserve it, overthink, not think at all, self-sabotage, create a reality where only your experience exists, ruin perfectly good moments for yourself and others, deny any wrongdoing, not take the steps to make it right, feel very guilty, let the guilt eat at you, hit rock bottom, finally address the pain you caused, try to do better next time, rinse, repeat. and i’m not gonna lie, these mistakes will cause you to lose things. i’m trying to tell you that losing things doesn’t just mean losing. a lot of the time, when we lose things, we gain things too.”
although that very part of the speech is perfect to describe every coming-of-age experience, reading through holden’s story simply reminds me of this part of the speech