No, Catcher in the Rye is not a failed coming-of-age story
Someone brought up in class that they didn't think that Holden did that much coming of age - that he wasn't really an adult when the novel ended, and that it is so ambiguous that readers don't know if the future looks good for him. I would disagree with that - I think Holden absolutely came of age, even if his ending doesn't fit some people's standard of "of age". He went through a very dramatic change over the course of the book, especially the end, when he came out on the other side of the peak of a mental breakdown and grew from a situation that could have turned out much worse. I think saying that he didn't really come of age ignores how low his low point in the book was - he wasn't eating, sleeping, thinking straight - he was on the brink of - in fact nearly tipping over into - ruining his life. To stay afloat and make a rational decision to go back to his family, is a very drastic change from the Holden with which the book began, and the Ho...