 Initial reactions to the book were mixed , ranging from The New York Times hailing Catcher as " an unusually brilliant first novel " to denigrations of the book 's monotonous language and the " immorality and perversion " of Holden , who uses religious slurs and freely discusses casual sex and prostitution . The novel was a popular success ; within two months of its publication , The Catcher in the Rye had been reprinted eight times . It spent 30 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list . 
