If you really want to hear about it...

I have finally finished reading The Catcher in the Rye for my Reading Dangerously Challenge. As I said, I read this years ago in Spanish, but I most definitely didn't get it, and in fact, could not remember very much of it.
"To tell you the truth", I was not impressed at first this time either. I just wasn't interested in Holden's ramblings and was losing all my patience with him. But suddenly, after his conversation with a cab driver about where the ducks go in winter, I was strangely hooked. I was back on my teenage years, and I felt the pain of feeling that nobody cared, that nobody understood, and that I was alone. I found myself nodding when he said things like

"All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to."

Because it's just so true. And the pain, the confusion, and the self-awareness is so real.
Towards the end, though, I started getting tired of the self-pity. I could see how Holden was spiraling out of control, and I lost my patience with him. I could not understand his resistance to grow up, and I wonder if that comes when reading this book now, because I now know that, despite the fact that adult/real life is hard, it's so much better than being an insecure teenager with an identity crisis.
If it's been a while since you read this, read the digested version from The Guardian here. Hilarious.