My favorite book is and always will be The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger.



I really have a strong emotional connection with this book and reading it is always an incredibly nostalgic feeling. I think it's because we read it in my freshman high school English class and high school wasn't an easy time for me in terms of social acceptance. I went to school with a lot of cliquey people (really referring to the girls specifically) who enjoyed backstabbing each other. So I mostly stuck to myself because I got sick of trying to be friends with people who didn't want to be bothered and it was a pretty lonely time for me.

When I wasn't sad about it, I'd feel pretty angry so reading this book at the time was a pretty big comfort for me. I felt like I could relate to Holden in a way and understand him. I was also the type of person who felt sad about transitioning from childhood to adulthood; I didn't want to lose the things I loved about my childhood. And this is a pretty big theme in Catcher, so that's another way I relate very closely to Holden. I still go through times where I miss the innocence and carefree times of childhood, but I try to hold onto those happy memories and let the child still stay alive in my heart. :)

But yeah, I truly love this book and I think it's wonderful that Salinger created a work that captures a time that is so very difficult for many adolescents. It bothers me that certain people like John Lennon's murderer have caused the book to be associated with negativity and being what "triggered" their atrocious actions (Lennon's killer Mark David Chapman was obsessed with the book and supposedly murdered him because he saw Lennon as a "phony" - which for those of you who haven't read the book, phony people are one of Holden's biggest qualms with society).

My second favorite book is Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov



It's definitely a controversial classic, and given the nature of the plot and the time in which it was written, I think Nabokov was a very brave writer. Also, I think it's pretty amazing at how eloquent his writing style is especially given that English was not his first language.

I think what I like about this novel so much is that has an incredibly controversial (and disturbing) theme running throughout, but the story is told with character development and isn't downright smut like many people assume prior to reading and only going by the plot synopsis (before actually reading it, I used to think it was just a story about some old pervert who liked little girls and was just some vulgar classic that gained a lot of popularity). But when you actually read it, you get an understanding of why Professor Humbert is as warped as he is and in a way, you simultaneously view him as a monster and can feel some sense of sorrow for him.

I've seen both the 1962 and 1997 versions of Lolita movies and I like them both. Though obviously in 1962, they were very limited in how they could translate a novel of this nature into a movie with censoring and whatnot. So I do like the 1997 version with Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain the best because it's insanely accurate to the book down to tiny details and the performances of both actors capture the characters very well, in my opinion.