Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

5/10

I read this book a few weeks ago during my spring break. As a big fan of Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye," I was quite excited to read this, all the while realizing that it will likely not meet the awesomeness of "Catcher in the Rye." With that said, I was a bit disappointed in it overall. It was written very well and I expected no less. I just didn't enjoy the characters pretty much.

It starts with Franny meeting her boyfriend and they are at a restaurant and they just fight the whole time because Franny is starting to get very annoyed with all the scholarly types because they think that they are so smart and superior. This is something that I can sort of relate to except she gripes about it in such a way that makes it look like she herself feels way superior and smarter than everyone else. Apparently she read some book about a guy who wants to learn to pray constantly in his heart so he repeats this prayer over and over until eventually it becomes a part of him like a heartbeat. So Franny starts to do that too and it makes her judgmental of everybody. She ends up having a massive breakdown. Plus, her boyfriend is a punk.

Then the story shifts to Zooey (pronounced Zoe?) who is Franny's brother. He is sitting in a tub, his mom comes in and he treats her all crappy and rips on her all the time. Then Zooey goes and talks with Franny (who has come back home all psycho) and tries to help her stop being a whack job. This part of the book was a bit better, it is just Zooey going off on her (not trying to be rude but he isn't really helping). Finally he leaves, goes upstairs and into his older brother's room and calls Franny on the phone from the upstairs phone pretending to be his brother. This was the best part of the book. Eventually she finds out it is Zooey and then she actually opens up, they have a heart to heart, and gets her to have a proper perspective.

The end. As I said, I didn't love it but it was alright I suppose.