Book Description
The author writes: Franny came out in The New Yorker/EM Zooey. Both stories are early, critical entries in a narrative series I'm doing about a family of settlers in twentieth-century New York, the Glasses. It is a long-term project, patently an ambitious one, and there is a real-enough danger, I suppose, that sooner or later I'll bog down, perhaps disappear entirely, in my own methods, locutions, and mannerisms. On the whole, though, I'm very hopeful. I love working on these Glass stories, I've been waiting for them most of my life, and I think I have fairly decent, monomaniacal plans to finish them with due care and all-available skill. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (210)

One of the Best Ever
This book is great.Salinger's writing is beautiful.His characters are interesting, intricate, human, and often intense.He doesn't need crazy action sequences or ballyhoo.His characters merely converse with each other, and yet his book is more engaging than almost any action novel, and it is certainly more thought provoking.

This book has changed me.It didn't change my life in any dramatic or wild way, but, having read it, I am now subtly different.For one, I realized that I had slipped into some of the dubious thinking that Zooey describes in the book.Second, I now view literature in a slightly different light.This book certainly stands out in the crowd.Finally, I feel inspired by this book's high quality - I feel slightly elevated.This probably doesn't make sense to you, who are reading this review.Maybe it will after you read the book.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book, although I still think "Catcher in the Rye" is better.

Finally, if you have read The Bible and a little of Epictetus' work, then you'll appreciate certain passages of "Franny and Zooey" a bit more.

I had no idea what I was missing!
I read this book with my book club this month, and I was blown away! I had no idea what I was missing. I have fallen in love with JD Salinger and since then picked up Nine Stories by him as well. I am taken away when I read him, I can say that I fully enjoy every moment of his writings so far. He is dry, and rough, and very descriptive. If you have only read Catcher in the Rye and think that you don't enjoy Salinger...give Franny and Zooey a try, it will be a breath of fresh air, and make you think too.

I enjoyed the book and the characters and all, but that was completely secondary to what I got out of the book. It is almost like I got what I did despite the fact that the book talks about a group of wonderbread kids who have life so easy that they try and make it complicated. I realised that I did have a hard time tolerating their fainting spells, and when they insulted their mamma and called her fat and such. I began to see them as more spoiled and less actually practising what they knew.

It seems that Salinger could have chosen to use these wealthy, upper class, wonderbreads because of the impact it could have on the reader. It is easier to take something from a preacher who you can see does not have it all together either, you can relate to him...and maybe that is why the author chose to do it that way. Maybe he was mocking the whole idea, as in these are they only type of people who can afford to mope around and recite little prayers....who knows what he meant to do...I do know what I got from it though. You really need to read it, to know what I mean by not knowing what you get from it after reading it...I think the conclusion could be different for almost every reader. Give this one a shot!!

This book helped me realize something important
I hated this book. I hated The Catcher in the Rye, too, but I figured that it was because I read it when I was eighteen and Just Didn't Get It because it was Important Literature and I Simply Didn't Have Enough Life Experience(TM). But now, years later, I've come to the conclusion that I just hate Salinger.

His characterization is awful. His characters are despicable, unsympathetic, egocentric, neurotic, and narcissistic. If I wanted to experience the incessant nattering of people who are simultaneously this reprehensible and this boring, I'll watch reality television. I had to read or re-read three other fluff-novels to have enough mental reserves to finish this.

I do have to thank this book for one thing, though. Franny and Zooey helped me to realize that life is too short to read bad literature. Never again am I going to fight my way through to the end of a novel I'm not enjoying just to indulge a compulsive desire for completion.

Cigarettes and Jesus
After reading Catcher in the Rye, Franny and Zooey was a surprise.It read like a play rather than a novel, but the characters were very strong and the portrait of the Glass family was quite engaging.I don't know if it is a reflection of the times, but boy I sure wanted everybody to stop smoking cigars and cigarettes, if only for a moment.Was that some kind of intentional device?Anyway, very well done if rather unexpected.I would have like to read more about the family dynamics, with the angst a bit toned down.

Another Salinger Classic
(Review based on the Penguin edition of said book)

After having read "The Catcher in the Rye" and "Nine Stories", "Franny & Zooey" was the logical step onward. I absolutely adore JD Salinger, and that book didn't disappoint me at all.

In this short novel - in two parts - you get to know more about the Glass family, first touched upon in "Nine Stories".

Salinger is definitely one of the most talented writers I've ever had the pleasure to read, and I just can't get enough of his writings. He's at once witty, profound, extremely intelligent, humane, well-read, and God knows how many other adjectives I could list here.

So what's this book about? I'd say, perhaps wrongly, that it's about life for people who are too intelligent to have an easy ride through it. But even that sort of description doesn't do the book justice. I just don't know how to describe this book without failing to do so; I think it's better to just trust me and go buy it right away (provided you read the two former books I mentioned at the beginning of this review). You have to experience this!

I'm sorry about my reviews in general (and this one among them) because I never really write anything amazing unless I have something negative to say and criticise; the better the book, the worse the review. Salinger's treasures are too subtle to be apptly described in a review. I could say I love his style and everything, that I find him extraordinary and talented as hell, but that wouldn't do much convincing of anyone reading this review. Salinger may not please everyone, but you definitely must find out for yourself if you like his books or not. ... Read more