Read as part of The Infinite Variety Reading Challenge, based on the BBC's Big Read Poll of 2003. 
 If I hadn't been reading this as part of the challenge, I would have given up after the first page. Even the first sentence. I have tried since I finished it to find any kind of positive thing to say, and all I can conclude is that it was relatively written well, in that the grammar was fine and the punctuation was in the correct places. 
 People have said you have to identify with Holden in order to understand the book, but I don't think identifying with him is a good thing at all. He's lazy, he's sexist, he's homophobic and he's very mentally disturbed. Whilst I can almost put some of this in to context because of the time it was written (when it was "okay" to be homophobic and sexist), I can't understand how in this day and age you can sit there and go "man, I get this character". 
 There was absolutely no plot, except a vague reference to how he has been on a downward spiral since his brother died, which is the whole basis of the book but isn't really explored in a way I think a modern book would be, which is fine. Again, of the time, but still plotless and unnecessary. It was slow despite it taking place over a very short space of time and I took absolutely nothing from it. 
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