Before reading The Catcher in the Rye, my parents and other older family members had told me that they enjoyed this book and it was by far their favorite novel that they read in high school. I was unsure how I would feel about the book, though, simply because I’m not much of a reader and being forced to read for school is not my favorite thing to do. I was extremely surprised straight off the bat with the first chapter of Catcher. My ability to relate to Holden was very surprising for a few reasons. Two being that he is a boy and I am a girl, and that the novel was written in the 1950s with intentions of being relatable to teens of that era. Holden’s colloquial language and speaking of his mind made me feel like he was in the room with me and he was telling me the story of a troubled couple of days after being kicked out of school. The issues that Holden had to deal with, especially the struggling with holding onto childhood, hit close to home for me. I’m sure many other teenage readers of Catcher felt this way after reading as well. Similarly to Holden, we are at a point in life where sometimes we are considered adults and at other times, we are considered children. This can be extremely confusing for a teenager in this “in-between” stage. I think this book was a perfect novel for a sophomore student to read because of the simple fact that we are going through many of the same issues as Holden Caulfield. As Holden trudges through the streets of New York alone and questions life, you have to admire Salinger’s writing style and how he can turn himself into Holden’s character and portray this boy with such detail. I was very pleasantly surprised when I realized that I wasn’t going to be tortured while reading a school assigned novel. This doesn’t happen very often with me, as I explained earlier. I would have to say that The Catcher in the Rye is definitely one of my favorite novels that I’ve had the pleasure to read so far in my life, if not my one single favorite. I know that reading may be a tough task for some, especially for school assignments, but I highly recommend taking the opportunity to read such an invigorating novel, The Catcher in the Rye.