Catcher in the Rye

This was the first time I read Catcher in the Rye.  There were several different themes for it.  In terms of the main character, he does strike you as whiny.  However, his affection for his younger sister is sweet.  The part where he bought the (vinyl) record and it broke and he felt really bad about it was really tender.  It is his affection for his siblings that redeems him a little bit to me.  He is also a storyteller, which is interesting.  He does not want to hurt the feelings of a mother of a classmate of his because, in his opinion, the guy is a total jerk.  So he lies to protect her feelings about how he really regards his classmate.
When I was reading this, I felt that the language was almost like a stream of consciousness.  For those of you who may not know, a stream of consciousness is when you write what you are thinking without regard for punctuation or self-censorship.  The swearing put me off a bit, but it is really quite tame in comparison to the language you would hear in any high school nowadays.
I really liked the setting because I was in New York recently and took the rail from Penn Station in NYC to another station on the line.  Newark station connects, now anyway, to the airlink at Liberty Airport.  I felt that it was really neat because I could imagine the places that he was travelling.  It meant more to me than to someone who did not go on the train.