The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger

The book is set in the early 50s. Fictional narrator Holden Caulfield is the handsome 17 year old son of a wealthy New York lawyer. He tells the story of when he was 16 and got kicked out of yet another fancy boarding school. He was expelled 3 days before the end of term and spent those days hanging out on his own in New York. Descriptions of the characters he meets in New York are interspersed with tales from boarding school. His time in New York involves a lot of smoking and drinking; he seems unable to stop moving from one depressing bar to the next.

Holden's younger brother died a few years earlier and he is obviously lost and depressed. He is looking for someone who might provide emotional support but they all come up short. On the verge of adulthood, he flits between a need for intellectual conversation and the desire to horse around. He finds almost everyone he meets to be a phoney and every event depresses him.

The only joy in Holden's life is his sister Phoebe who he adores, and a girl named Jane who he keeps meaning to phone. By the end of the book I felt concern for Holden. He comes across as smart, genuine and generous but at the same time immature, judgemental and not much fun to be around. The moral of the story seemed to me to be that when children go off the rails it's often the adults that have failed the child and not the other way around.