{"id":1232,"date":"2026-07-10T15:43:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T15:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1232"},"modified":"2026-07-10T15:43:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T15:43:04","slug":"the-catcher-in-the-rye-is-for-girls-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1232","title":{"rendered":"The Catcher in the Rye Is for Girls Too"},"content":{"rendered":"<section>\n<div>\n<p><small><em>This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors\u2019 weekly guide to the best in books. <\/em><i>Sign up for it here.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1230\">The Rosenberg Boys<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Around the time I turned 15, I was convinced that the only person who really got me was a 17-year-old boy named Holden Caulfield. Although Holden is fictional, the protagonist of J. D. Salinger\u2019s classic novel <em>The Catcher in the Rye<\/em> felt three-dimensional to me. Yet in the 75 years since the book\u2019s publication, he has been flattened by pop culture into a character Salinger didn\u2019t create: an irritatingly male, misanthropic whiner. I think this depiction is unfair, and my colleague Lily Meyer agrees with me. Holden represents \u201ca case against nihilism and a vision of a gentler sort of manhood,\u201d she wrote this week in <em>The Atlantic<\/em>. He\u2019s someone teenage boys can learn from, Meyer suggests; I know from experience that he has something to teach teenage girls too.<\/p>\n<p>First, here are five new stories from <em>The Atlantic<\/em>\u2019s Books section:<\/p>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>The end of reading is here.<\/li>\n<li>Can tennis survive its new golden age?<\/li>\n<li>The literary genre that thrives in hard times<\/li>\n<li>\u201cI Heard You Singing,\u201d a short story by Emily Ruskovich<\/li>\n<li>\u201cFrom <em>Idaho B Roll<\/em>,\u201d a poem by Brian Blanchfield<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>To be fair to his haters, Holden is fairly down on everyone he encounters. In his view, the boys at his school are phonies, as are pretty much all of the adults he knows. But Holden is not heedlessly pushing the world away. He\u2019s struggling with the knowledge that the values society is supposed to reward\u2014honesty, most of all\u2014are not what actually help people get ahead in life. He\u2019s grieving the loss of his brother Allie, who died of leukemia. He feels betrayed by his parents, who shipped him off to a military school several states away from home. When he puts his trust in a beloved teacher, his confidence is betrayed. He watches as boys his age learn how to manipulate girls, how to quash negative emotions, how to lie and use hypocrisy to come out on top. Holden hates it all.<\/p>\n<p>As a similarly confused and unhappy teenager, I found in Holden\u2014as I wrote in a ninth-grade assignment\u2014\u201csomeone who is not quite a role model, but surely a relatable figure.\u201d Finally, one person was reacting in a way that may not have been exactly mature or ideal, but at least felt appropriate for the tumult and distress of adolescence. The great secret of <em>Catcher<\/em>, though\u2014what gets lost in its reputation\u2014is that Holden\u2019s attitude is itself phony. He\u2019s a tender kid who famously worries about the ducks in cold, icy Central Park, and who adores and hopes to protect his little sister, Phoebe. His indifferent attitude is just a self-protective persona he\u2019s trying on. As a 21st-century girl, I had an entirely different set of stressors, but it helped to see, even through fiction, that not every boy around me was satisfied by simply obsessing over sports or bragging about sex. Holden was an important reminder that on the inside, no teenager was exactly who they were pretending to be.<\/p>\n<p>That year, I\u2019d been employing defense mechanisms similar to Holden\u2019s\u2014until I encountered <em>Catcher<\/em>\u2019s final lesson, which is that his armor can\u2019t block out his pain and fear. He has a breakdown, and although Salinger is too subtle a writer to give his book a tidy ending, Holden ends up more comfortable with the idea that we all have to grow up. Revisiting the novel 15 years later, I\u2019m moved by the sense that life is very long. I\u2019m no longer Holden\u2019s peer, and I feel almost maternal toward him. He\u2019d never listen\u2014and neither would my teenage self\u2014but I want to tell him, with the benefit of hindsight, that he won\u2019t be stuck feeling this way forever.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Wisdom of Holden Caulfield<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><i>By Lily Meyer<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Beneath all the alienation, <em>The Catcher in the Rye<\/em>, which turns 75 this year, has a surprisingly hopeful\u2014and ethical\u2014outlook.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1228\">Atlantic Trivia: France (Yay!) and Belgium (Boo!)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Read the full article.<\/p>\n<h4><b>What to Read<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><strong><em>A Woman\u2019s Game: The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Women\u2019s Soccer<\/em><\/strong><strong>, by Suzanne Wrack<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In 2019, the U.S. women\u2019s national soccer team\u2014a charismatic, politically active group that had openly feuded with President Donald Trump\u2014took the pitch for the World Cup final against the Netherlands, and came out as heroic winners. America was watching: The match represented a modern pinnacle of popularity for the women\u2019s game in the U.S. and globally. Wrack\u2019s comprehensive history of women\u2019s soccer begins in the early 20th century, when it was so popular that England\u2019s Football Association, claiming that the sport was \u201cunsuitable for females,\u201d actually banned women from playing for more than five decades. The book then continues to the present day, when the game has reached new heights. Wrack is straightforward in her storytelling, but she\u2019s clear about what the act of play truly means. Victory isn\u2019t the only thing on the line: Women playing elite soccer defy those who attempt to belittle their accomplishments\u2014something the USWNT, who took constant heat from Trump, understands vividly. \u2014 Will Leitch<\/p>\n<p>From our list: Seven books that will change how you watch sports<\/p>\n<h4><b>Out Next Week<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><em>\ud83d\udcda <\/em><em>Famous Men<\/em>, by Julie Buntin<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><em>\ud83d\udcda <\/em><em>Ada<\/em>, by Mark Haber<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><em>\ud83d\udcda <\/em><em>Not With a Bang<\/em>, by Temi Oh<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h4><strong>Your Weekend Read<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><strong>The Demon Next Door<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><i>By Stephanie McCrummen<\/i><\/p>\n<p>\u201c[Southland\u2019s] owner was Lisa Misosky, and she was chatting with customers one afternoon when she found out that people in town were accusing her of demonic activity, and not in a metaphorical way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read the full article.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><small><em>When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting <\/em>The Atlantic<em>.<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><small><i>Sign up for The Wonder Reader,<\/i><i> a Saturday newsletter in which our editors recommend stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1226\">Photos of the Week: Rabbit Beach, Puffin Census, Wild Horses<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><small><i>Explore <\/i><i>all of our newsletters.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>J. D. Salinger\u2019s classic novel of teen alienation made me feel more connected to the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books-briefing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Catcher in the Rye Is for Girls Too - Commercial Relocation Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1232\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Catcher in the Rye Is for Girls Too - Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"J. 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