Why did this book have such an impact on Americans of the 20th century and today?

• Reviews:

TIME “Some of my best friends are children,” says Jerome David Salinger, 32. “In fact, all of my best friends are children.” And Salinger has written short stories about his best friends with love, brilliance and 20-20 vision. In his tough-tender first novel, The Catcher in the Rye he charts the miseries and ecstasies of an adolescent rebel, and deals out some of the most acidly humorous deadpan satire since the late great Ring Lardner. 

Afraid to go home ahead of his bad news, he checks in at a cheap New York hotel; in the next 48 hours, he tries on a man-about-town role several sizes too large for him. Getting sickly drunk at a bar, he slithers away in a Walter Mitty mood, pretending: “Rocky’s mob got me … I kept putting my hand under my jacket, on my stomach and all, to keep the blood from dripping all over the place. I didn’t want anybody to know I was even wounded . . . Boy, was I drunk.”

Some Crazy Cliff. When the seedy night elevator man proposes sending a young prostitute to his room, bravado makes him play along. Besides: “I worry about that stuff sometimes. I read this book once . . . that had this very sophisticated, suave, sexy guy in it . . . and all he did in his spare time was beat women off with a club … He said, in this one part, that a woman’s body is like a violin and all, and that it takes a terrific musician to play it right. It was a very corny book—I realize that—but I couldn’t get that violin stuff out of my mind anyway.” His enthusiasm for that kind of fiddling practice fades in hopeless embarrassment as soon as the tart snakes out of her dress.

Scolded by testy cab drivers, seared by his best girl’s refusal to elope with him, and surrounded by an adult world of “phonies,” he loses control of his tight-lipped histrionics. He sneaks home for a midnight chat with his perky ten-year-old sister, breaks down and cries on her bed. In a moving moment, he tells her what he would really like to do and be: “I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around—nobody big, I mean—except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy . . .”

For U.S. readers, the prize catch in The Catcher in the Rye may well be Novelist Salinger himself. He can understand an adolescent mind without displaying one.

http://time.com/3677041/catcher-in-the-rye-review/

The New York Times It is just before Christmas and 16-year-old Holden Caulfield has been kicked out of exclusive Pencey Prep, a boys' school in Pennsylvania. Considering everything, this reflects more credit on Holden than on Pencey. Life at Pencey is dreary, regimented, artificial and, of course, expensive. This happens, however, to be only the latest of a series of schools from which Holden has been expelled. Understandably he is in no hurry to encounter his parents, but he is also reluctant to linger a moment longer than necessary at Pencey. He therefore takes what money he has and departs for New York, where he passes several days in a weird jumble of adventures and experiences, is involved with a variety of persons including taxi drivers, two nuns, an elevator man, three girls from Seattle, a prostitute, and a former teacher from whom Holden thinks it best to flee in the middle of the night and most of all from himself. Holden's story is told in Holden's own strange, wonderful language by J. D. Salinger in an unusually brilliant novel, "The Catcher in the Rye." The Book-of-the-Month Club has chosen it as its current selection. Holden is bewildered, lonely, ludicrous and pitiful. His troubles, his failings are not of his own making but of a world that is out of joint. There is nothing wrong with him that a little understanding and affection, preferably from his parents, couldn't have set right. Though confused and unsure of himself, like most 16-year-olds, he is observant and perceptive and filled with a certain wisdom. His minor delinquencies seem minor indeed when contrasted with adult delinquencies with which he is confronted.

 Mr. Salinger, whose work has appeared in The New Yorker and elsewhere, tells a story well, in this case under the special difficulties of casting it in the form of Holden's first- person narrative. This was a perilous undertaking, but one that has been successfully achieved. Mr. Salinger's rendering of teen-age speech is wonderful: the unconscious humor, the repetitions, the slang and profanity, the emphasis, all are just right. Holden's mercurial changes of mood, his stubborn refusal to admit his own sensitiveness and emotions, his cheerful disregard of what is sometimes known as reality are typically and heart breakingly adolescent. The author evidently takes a dim view of prep-school life, and few writers have presented it with more effortless devastation. Holden's reminiscences and observations are short and to the point. "Pencey," he tells us, "was full of crooks. Quite a few guys came from these very wealthy families, but it was full of crooks anyway. The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has. I'm not kidding." Holden is sometimes, but not for long, a little bitter, and it may be he has a tendency to generalize from too little evidence (in this case his camel's-hair coat had been stolen out of his room), but he has seen and done a lot for a 16-year-old, and a lot has been done to him. Mr. Salinger gives us a peek at Pencey's headmaster, who knows just which parents to talk with, which to ignore, gives a glimpse, too, of alumni and assorted students. Then there is a fine chapter in which Holden calls to say good-by to an ancient teacher, an unlovable Mr. Chips without wisdom or imagination.

 https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/13/specials/salinger-rye02.html

• People that were affected by Holden and did something about it

No matter how many times Holden says he’s “lonesome” (it’s a lot), he often can’t even get to the point of reaching out at all. The very first thing the does when he gets off the train in New York is go to a phone booth… and then he leaves twenty minutes later without having even picked up the receiver.

 Every time Holden thinks of someone to call, he ends up deciding not to—usually because he’s afraid he’ll have to interact with someone he doesn’t like. (Like adults.) On the one hand, this is just Holden’s passivity. Over and over again, he decides not to do something.

 On the other hand, judging by the interactions that he does have, we… can’t really blame him. Take a look at just a handful of these encounters:

 He invites Ackley along to the movies, but Ackley won't return the favor by letting Holden sleep in his roommate's bed. He writes Stradlater's composition for him, and in return gets yelled at (and socked in the nose, but technically that was for different reasons). He even had to type that essay on a junky old typewriter because he had lent his own to the guy down the hall. He lends out up his hound's-tooth jacket, knowing it'll get stretched out in the shoulders. He gets stuck with the tab for the three "moronic" girls' drinks in the Lavender Room at his hotel. He pays Sunny even though he doesn't have sex with her, and ends up getting cheated out of five more dollars (and socked in the stomach, although technically this, too, was for different reasons).

 Still, Holden never makes himself out to be a victim. He doesn't seem to notice that he gets taken advantage of over and over and over again. At least, not on a conscious level. (We’re not so sure about his unconscious.). Despite his Judgy McJudgerson exterior, Holden just wants to make friends—like a cute little puppy who keeps on trying.

http://www.shmoop.com/catcher-in-the-rye/holden-caulfield.html

When I started reading this book, by the second paragraph I already had a pretty good idea of Holden’s personality. It seems as if just about everything bothers him of he doesn’t like many things. Also, he doesn't say many positive things, and if he does, it’s closely followed by a negative.

I think that something traumatic happened in his life that made him develop his view of the world the way he did. Initially I thought his parents abused him or something, but then he talked about how the were nice people, so I ruled that out. My next thought was maybe he had a sibling or friend he was close with had died, and the death had major side effects on him. My last idea was his personality was like this naturally; negative and uncaring (to some degree).

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/298976-holden-caufield--view-of-the-world-page-16

• How did teenagers react to the book when it was first published? 

The Catcher In The Rye had an impact when it came out, and still does now because the teenage population still exists and can relate to Holden. At the time period the book came out, teenagers were not as exposed to Holdens language, behavior, and the sexual references. Adults did not approve of this book for those very reasons and parents were once young and disillusioned themselves, but they’ve grown out of it, and they assume the rest of the world has grown with them.

In the book, Holden Caulfield is trying to grasp at maturity. As a teenager this kind of behavior and attitude is still relevant, even if it is dated. Our generation might be more technologically focused, but that does not change the simple feeling near all of us have: rebellion toward those older than us. Most teens are trying to grow up too fast just as Holden Caulfield did in Catcher In The Rye.

We all feel alienated by adults at one point or another, mainly just because they have more freedom than us. The ways that Holden reacts to these feelings may be old-fashioned and unheard of nowadays, but the essence of his character touches close to home to teenagers today.

• Why was the book banned? 

It was banned for its sexual references,  its alcohol abuse and simply for being “unacceptable”.  The book has multiple scenes and references to prostitution and premarital sex.

Although The Catcher in the Rye is one of the most controversial books ever written, it is still taught in many English classes all around the United States, and is still loved by many teenagers and adults for its rebellious characteristics. It was banned for its profanity, sexual content, and violence by many schools from the 60’s to the present. But many schools have reinstated the book, recognizing its literary importance.
My opinion is that they are right, it could be a great book for teenagers but they can also read it out of the school because not all students have the same maturity at school.