The attractive nature of The Catcher in the Rye is in the honesty in the way it presents itself. Its narrative, while somewhat loose and wandering in nature, gently explores themes of youthful angst and existential aimlessness that allow such a story to feel accessible and relatable to its readers. The sense of transparency that we receive could also prove itself to be its biggest draw in one's potential to disengage with the material as its protagonist, Holden Caulfield, finds pessimism in almost everything that surrounds him.

There is this persistency in his views that deemed those around him as disingenuine, labelling them as phonies, and often expresses an overwhelming emotion of dissatisfaction that feels rather stretched in its presentation, despite its rather compressed narrative time-frame. That being said, there is an argument to be made that what is being placed on the page is rather a therapeutic act for the character, allowing his own flawed self to be documented with humility and pureness; a personal breakthrough, one may suggest.

This is a book that has pulled me back and forth with its ability to charm and stir irritation. There is an authenticity in Holden but it comes with his own fair of baggage. Salinger has left it for the audience to decide which side of the fence he would want us to feel about the entire experience; an interpretation that perhaps he would have wanted his protagonist to hear.