More than Just a Rating discussion

My review of The Catcher in the Rye:


So, there is this book called The Catcher in the Rye, written by this guy, you know, the writer of this book, so anyway, the book is written by this writer named J. D. Salinger. Boy, I hate it when somebody hides their real name by just writing their initials and all, and if you want to know, this guy's real name is actually Jerome David Salinger, in case you like to know all that stuff. Now I'm not gonna fill this up with a bunch of David Copperfield crap about what kind of guy this Salinger was and what kind of life he led, because I don't feel like it, if you want to know the truth. You have to be in the mood to write these kinda things, you know. All I want to say that I'm gonna review this book and all. I think some of those reviews are phony as heck, if you want to know the truth, but I'll have to try to not let that happen to this one.

So this story, it was about some funny bastard called Holden Caulfield, or Cawffle, or Cauliflower, or whatever, I never could remember all those funny names. He got the ax and got kicked out of this really phony school called Pencey or something, and so this Cauliflower guy bummed around in New York for two days, till he had to get back to his home. It killed me. No kidding. The Cawffle guy was really depressed for half of the book and he kept going around and around and meeting all of these phony guys. It killed me. It really did. And there were all these funny things that happened in it, like, he has these fights with his roommate in Pencey and some elevator operator and he asks this girl to run away with him and realizes that he was actually mad all the time. Some funny things also happen when he goes to his little sister's school (he also has this bigger brother called D. B. who, like the freaking writer himself, uses his initals, and hangs around with some phony hot shots in Hollywood and he also has one other brother who died) and asks her to come to a museum, where his sister gets angry with him for not letting her go with him and then he decides that he will not run away, and they end up going to the zoo. There even is this red hunting hat which Holden wears, which I think is the symbol for the "catcher in the rye". It makes sense, too, as this Caulfield teenager I told you about, he tries to be an adult while still being an innocent kind of guy and he tries to find some traits in other adults like kindness and innocence which are in kids, and he misunderstands this poem by some bloke called Robert Burns which has a line about a body meeting a body through the rye or something, so he reads it as a body catching a body through the rye, and so he becomes this "catcher in the rye" who has to save kids from falling off a cliff or something. In one part, the part where he goes to his sister's school and all, he sees these bad words written on a wall and he is, like, totally mad after that, because he doesn't want those little kids in school to be harmed by it or anything. At the end, he still hasn't matured much, you can tell, but he gives his red hunting hat to his little sister, showing her that he's gonna protect her or something. It really knocks me out, all that stuff about somebody misunderstanding or distorting something. Boy, I hate all that layer and analogy stuff, it is just so phony, but, anyway, I thought this book was real fantastic.

Some freaking phonies tried to have it banned, for goodness' sake. Those phonies called it a bad book and all. Like, seriously, these phonies are always making a big deal out of nothing. But even then, it got many reviews saying it was good and got listed in some "Best Novels" list or something, but if you ask me, those lists are phony as heck, if you want to know the truth, just like those prizes. Boy, I hate prizes so much. I also hate those phony guys who give prizes. But what do you care? You're a phony for even reading this. You're all phonies. Boy, I hate phonies.

To me, it sounds more like a spoiler than a review. You might also want to find some good things about this book.

Also it seems to long, I started skimming, Try using paragraphs and don't use the word hate so much, try using dislike or this part wasn't that great and so on.

Hmmmmmm, actually Zaira, it does have spoilers. I plan to post it with a spoiler warning. And it's not actually what I'd call a serious review, but rather a review written in the style of the narrator of the book. I personally like funny reviews like that, and particularly people who had already read the book would like it very much and even some people who haven't read the book.

It's a 5-star review, by the way.

Ah, okay, that sounds better!

Good then. So, final opinion?

I edited the review again, you know, made some minor changes and all.

I've posted it.

Actually, I had a version of it before, but I just edited it again and all.

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

My edited review, posted on Goodreads just now.

Any further suggestions for improvement, anyone?

Is this the first time you've written in this style of reviewing?

No, this is my first time that I have copied the writing style of some book for the review of that book. But I loved Catcher's style and Catcher has a style which particularly lends itself to being copied to. So I'm specifically copying the style of The Catcher in the Rye here and it's real fun.

oooooh, okay, that's interesting.

Like the content, but I would break up the content a little. The second paragraph is HUGE and might do better if you did a paragraph break after parts of the story. Which is hard because catcher in the rye doesn't really have a beginning, middle, and end.

Sarah wrote: "Like the content, but I would break up the content a little. The second paragraph is HUGE and might do better if you did a paragraph break after parts of the story. Which is hard because catcher in..."

I agree. I don't mind long reviews, but overly-long paragraphs can be a pain (I know of what I speak, I have a tendency to write overly-long paragraphs). Seriously, many people who say that they don't like long reviews, actually have problems with overly long paragraphs; shorter chunks of writing are much easier to follow and much easier on the eye.

it's true, I found myself skimming, just looking for things that popped out to me.

I agree that it could use some more paragraphs, and with BunWat's "too much synopis and not enough review" comment.

My 2cents... I've never read Catcher in the Rye or anything else by Salinger, so I'm unfamiliar with the style. When I read through the review when I first came to this thread I couldn't tell if it was serious, if you were trying to hard to be funny, or what.

Now that I've read the comments, I realize that I thought that because of my ignorance about the book/author/style. For people like myself who have not read the book, it might be good to add a comment about how you liked the style to tie it all together.

Hmmmmm, now those are things to think about. I would try to edit it when I'm in the mood, and improve it. Thanks for suggestions, everybody.....

BunWat wrote: "You're welcome. I still think its a fun review, and its a clever idea to try writing it in the style of the book. So I hope I wasn't being discouraging."

Oh, no no no, you weren't! And thanks!

Thanks for sharing - I agree with the suggestions, and I also agree that the style of your 'homage' is clever.