** spoiler alert ** 
 I really loved Catcher in the Rye. In it, Holden believes that he is surronded by phoniness, and he tries to disconnect himself from everybody and everything around him, hoping that everything will stay that same, as it does in the Museum of Natural History. I believe that this is due to Allie, who died when Holden was just thirteen. 
 In the beginning, Holden has just been kicked out of Pencey Prep, for not applying himself, which makes this his fourth private school that he has been kicked out of. Instead of leaving on the day Christmas break begins, he leaves a couple days early. He goes home to New York City, and lives by himself, not really interacting on a higher level with anyone. Some of the people he encoutners are Sunny, a prostitute who has her pimp beat him up because he "didn't pay the full amount", Phoebe, his younger sister, who convinces him near the end of the story not to run away, and Sally, a girl who goes on a date with Holden, and it is on this date, that we truly begin to see what some of the effects of his mental downward spiral. Holden yelled at her, about running away, and living together in secret, and when she repeatidly told him this, he wrote it off as nothing. 
 In the end, Holden tells us that this is as much as he will tell us, but he does reveal that he got sick after Christmas, and had to be sent to a rest home. He also says that he will be going to school in the fall, where he will try to apply himself, but we never find out if he eventually did. He closes by saying that talking about what happened to him only makes him miss everybody, and that he tries to avoid talking about it.