Author J.D. Salinger booklist (click here)

Book Review By alisa
A Perfect Day for Bananafish by J.D. Salinger

A Perfect Day for Bananafish is about a young girl and a boy who both run away together to a beach resort in New York. Muriel (the girl) is perfectly sane and acts like any other normal girl would; very interested in self-looks and lives a carefree life. However, Sybil (the boy) is mentally ill and depressed. Sybil is on the beach and is flirting with a girl, seeming like a normal person. But he begins to scare the girl by saying the most random, most wierd things such as what a bananafish is. She runs away from him and depresses Sybil even more. On his way back to the hotel room, he thinks that a woman is staring at his extremely pale feet when she was actually staring at the floor. He yells at her and she denies staring at his feet, which causes him to yell at her even more and calls her a sneak. Then, Sybil goes into his hotel room and shoots himself.
Plot Tone of book? - depressed Time/era of story - 1930's-1950's Kids growing up/acting up? Yes Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book Something wrong upstairs/downstairs? - mental illness Main Character Gender - Male Profession/status: Age: - 20's-30's Eccentric/Mental Yes Eccentric: - mentally ill - emotionally unstable - wild Is this an ordinary person caught up in events? Yes Ethnicity/Nationality Intelligence - Average intelligence Physique - healthy but a geeky weakling Main Adversary Identity: - none Setting How much descriptions of surroundings? - 6 (an above average amount) United States Yes The US: - Northeast Style Person - mostly 3rd Accounts of torture and death? - moderately detailed references to deaths Unusual Style: - a lot of stream of consciousness Amount of dialog - significantly more descript than dialog