Franny and Zooey

We walked into Book Club Bar in the East Village / Alphabet City (not exactly sure the dividing line there) just to check it out. It was right next to our Japanese Tempora restaurant reservation and around the corner from Sunday Morning (insanely good cinamin rolls). I also think my coworker Allie told me about this, though I didn't think of it until we were already there. We go in and the bar is first and the books in the back, but everyone is reading, in the comfy chairs in the back and on the bar counter up front. Glancing around Alejandra looks for a book for her girlfriends book exchange party back in Walnut Creek. She ultimately lands on Trust, upon my recommendation, though she buys it on Amazon and has it shipped since we're tight on space in the luggages with all the gifts we're buying for the kids. I'm just browsing and, out of curiousity since I'm reading Catcher in the Rye, I see what else JD Slinger wrote, hoping to find something NYC releated. I strike gold! A little Salinger book that indeed takes place in NYC. UES in an apartment overlooking an all girls school that sounds a lot like the one Alejandra and I passed across the street from the Met! This book did not land as well for me as Catcher in the Rye did. The dialogue was great, though a bit too similar to Rye. Loved the mini-child celebrity trauma throughout. But the story itself was not particularly propulsive and although there were aha moments in the writing and philosophyzing, not as much as Rye. So average, where Rye was 5stars.