The Catcher in the Rye

Title: The Catcher in the Rye
Author: J. D. Salinger
Publication Date: 1951
Rating: 3
On the list?: no

I chose this as the first book I read in 2012. I was disappointed. For all the hype and all, it just didn’t resonate with me. I didn’t get it. Holden Caulfield, the main character, was never likable for me. Not that a main character has to be likable at all, but he just annoyed me and I didn’t care enough about the book itself. Holden was so whiny and couldn’t leave well enough alone. I understand that he was dealing with feeling alienated and misunderstood. But, why did he have to make things worse for himself? Maybe I just wasn’t an angsty enough teen, but this one didn’t click with me. It is a good representation of the time period, and I found glimpses of things I felt as a teen, but overall it fell short for me. However, it is considered one of the greatest books of the 20th century, so I suggest you read it yourself.

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.”

Chaos Walking Trilogy

Title: The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, and Monsters of Men
Author: Patrick Ness
Publication Date: 2008-2010
Rating: 4
On the list?: yes

Todd lives in Prentisstown, which consists only of men. He is twelve, and the youngest resident of Prentisstown and New World. All the women on New World were killed by a germ that the native people (Spackle) released after the settlers landed on New World. The germ had a different effect on the men. Instead of killing them, it laid their thoughts bare for everyone to hear. The men can’t control their noise, as they call it, but they try their best to live with it. Prentisstown is the only civilization on New World, they are alone. At least, that’s all that Todd has been told his entire life. When he finds out that a girl has landed on New World, everything changes and Todd must run to save not only his life, but the entire planet.
The trilogy starts off kind of slow, but it picks up. By the final book in the series, I was hooked. Ness’s use of simplistic diction, and sometimes (purposefully) incorrect grammar is something to get used to, but it really helps to open Todd up and feel things from his perspective. Todd and Viola (the girl that landed on New World) are intensely likeable characters. This is one of those books that sneaks up on you, and before you know it the world and the characters have become a part of you. By the end of the final book, I was in tears. One thing I kept thinking while reading was that this would make a seriously INTENSE movie, and I’ve found out that the company that bought the rights to The Hunger Games has bought the rights to this trilogy. There is truly something for everyone in this series, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone. There are so many twists and turns, that the whopping approximately 1500 pages for the entire trilogy goes by pretty fast.

“The Noise is a man unfiltered, and without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.”