A review of...

Franny and Zooey

Alright. So this book, by one of my favorite authors J.D. Salinger, was divided into two sections. Can you guess what they were called? If you guessed Franny and Zooey, you're right! They're brother and sister (Zooey is a guy), and the book is basically about this mental collapse Franny suffers and her resulting interaction with Zooey. The Franny section was pretty short (originally the two sections were published seperately in "The New Yorker"). I liked the Franny section a lot better. It was similar to a lot of Salinger's other short stories. I really like and respect the way he can create stories by giving weight to these moments that could be deemed insignificant. He makes you feel like you know a lot about these characters while giving very little exposition or direct description, which is pretty amazing. A lot of his work (Franny section included) has that beautiful heartbreaking effect which all my favorite books seem to have.

That being said, I didn't like the Zooey section quite so much. I think it got a little wordy and slow. I'll tell you right now that nothing really happens in this book, which can be okay, but sometimes gets a little hard to read. If you've never read Salinger before, don't start with this book. In fact, I don't think I would recommend reading this book at all unless you've read "Nine Stories," which is his amazing collection of short stories. If you have read "Nine Stories," then "Franny and Zooey" is interesting because it deals with the Glass family, the family of a few characters from "Nine Stories" (Boo Boo and Seymour). Overall, I give it 7 pretzel bites.

KAY