Just a quick review for you

Franny and Zooey  by J. D. Salinger
Stars: 4/5
Started: March 23, 2015
Finished: March 25, 2015

Wow. What a read.
I'm simultaneously having an existential crisis and experiencing extreme peace. Who knew that was possible. I feel like I need to sit in meditation and just take in the world around me and God around me after reading this book.

Salinger: you put me in 500 states of awe from this book. Most of them from your writing. The complexity of the sentences, the randomness and realism in each paragraph was incredible. The whole story seemed mundane, but this huge umbrella of wonder and divinity spread over the book without explicitly asserting itself.

What I took out of this book, was a family dynamic along with the idea of self-realization. Franny and Zooey have a love/hate relationship. Love, in the sense that they understand each other and ironically, hate because they understand each other and Zooey ends up preaching to her rather than helping Franny. They understand each other's thoughts and actions because they share the same foundation in their education and childhood, thanks to their eldest brothers. It seems the three main characters (Franny, Zooey, and Buddy) are all in a funk, for lack of a better term. They are all stuck in their life, not knowing where to go next and not even having the desire for the moments that they are at in their life. It's undeniably relatable: the feeling that you want to do something but you don't know what that something is and you don't have the power or the motivation to do anything. 

It wasn't really plot driven at all. You could call it idea driven or even character driven. Regardless of its structure, you learn from Franny's existential breakdown and Zooey's preachy character trait/flaw. I think this book should be read by everyone in their 20's and should be a required read for college.

There are so many lessons in this book, I can't even begin to name them all, but I'll quote a few for you:
"This is God's universe, buddy, not yours, and he has the final say about what's ego and what isn't... In my opinion, if you really want to know, half the nastiness in the world is stirred up by people who aren't using their true egos." -Zooey (166).
"I don't know what good it is to know so much and be smart as whips and all if it doesn't make you happy." -Bessie Glass, (118)
"You can at least try to, if you want to—there's nothing wrong in trying." -Zooey (197)

This book was artfully crafted and mysterious and enlightening and results in peace. Thank you Salinger.

[this book was the "bottom of your to-read shelf" book for my 2015 Reading Challenge]

SOP: All That You Have Is Your Soul by Tracy Chapman

{never have I found a more fitting song for a post}