EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club discussion

Hell no. This is one book I truly despise. The whole prep school entitled white boy thing makes me cringe

I know people despise this book, but I absolutely loved it..... then again I was 18 when I read it. Should be fun reading it again.

I loved it too, but similarly I was 16 when I read it. I'm going to try to re-read it with the group this month. It will be interesting to see if my thoughts about it have changed.

Never read it, and the controversy around all the strange things it (supposedly) inspired has always been a question mark for me.

Also that it’s so polarizing is super interesting- no idea what side I’ll fall on for this one which is why I’m picking it up now.

Love that this book brings up strong emotions; they're always the best to chat about.
I also read this as a teenager and loved it, but that may have been because of my mum's influence - SHE loved it, and it made much more sense because that was revolutionary for her. A 'raw' story from the point of view of a teenager? Being born in the early '50s, that wasn't something you would expect. Nowadays we have endless amounts of stories in the YA category. It doesn't have the same impact.

I love this book, but not at first. The first time i read it i just could see why it was a classic. Now i understand! I look forward to rereading it. Happy to be starting 2020 off with an old friend Holden Caulfield.

I read this book as a teenager and hated it. I decided to give it another try as an adult.

Read it as a teen. Don’t remember much. I remember hearing it was really controversial at the time it was first published. Not really sure why; interested to find out though.

I heard so many things about this book, both positive and negative (basically the things already said in this thread), but I still have absolutely no idea what it's about. Looking forward to finally finding it out :D

I also read this book when I was in high school and I really liked it that time, although I think it was due to the fact that it was easy to read with all the "teenage speech" compared to Dostoevsky or Hemingway. So I will try this out again and I'm really curious how will I feel about it after 14 years (my god, I'm really old 😄).

Its my first time to read this book. My main motivation was this group and the idea of being catched up and my other motivation was that i heard about this book a lot.
And as i can see there are its lovers and haters here and that makes me more eager to start it and see how it is.

I also read it when I was much younger.. Grade 9 I believe. And I loved it! But I haven’t read it since then so I’m very much looking forward to seeing if I still like it!

I tried to read it when I was in high school (over twenty years ago) but I couldn’t get into it for some reason. I’m going to try again this month though!

I think I attempted to read this a while ago, but never could get into it. I’m going to try again! This was the only book my library had out of the January reads.

I’m starting it tonight! For the first time in 18 years!

I have read it twice but did not find it profounding as a classic.

I didn't know whether to post in this or the other spoiler thread. I chose this because I haven't finished the book yet.

I didn't know anything about this book going into it. I don't like the narrator which seems to be intentional on the author's part. So my question as I am working through it is, "Why did the author want me to hate his protagonist?"

I'm still reading it as well, but I am liking it so far. I do understand other people feeling the entitled thing. Just reading the first chapter though I could almost hear Ponyboy from The Outsiders in Holden's voice. It's like if Ponyboy was put into Dead Poet's Society somehow.

Even "prep school entitled white boys" have full human emotions and experiences. I understand if some readers don't find Holden himself sympathetic, but dismissing an entire book based on the protagonist's demographic seems unfair. People are people.

I don't dismiss the book because Holden is not the type of person I want to read about. He is pompous , dull and boring. I wouldn't want to read about him if he were a cowboy, farm worker, teacher, I am not dismissing him on his demographic. I dismiss him on his personality. Some truly wonderful and unselfish people and chars came from a prep school Holden is not one.