Mine too. Wasn’t assigned it in high school but read it when I was about 20. It made quite an impact.
For awhile I read it every year around Christmas.
How could the story of a young man in transition from youth to young adulthood, learning that the world is full of phonies and perverts and that one should look for beauty in the world, not be relevant?
Agreed. As a child you might believe that all is good, beautiful and true but the awakening is brutal when you find it isn't. I've run across a few young adults stuck in the "phony" stage that have a lot of difficulty overcoming it. A common thread seemed to be the lack of a positive role model (father).