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The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

37 reviews

giuliana_ferrari's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The Grapes of Wraith is defined as "one of the Great American Novels". As someone that was not born nor doesn't live in the United States, considering this read as a 5.0 truly gives away how amazing this book is. There is so much to reflect on: the symbolic motifs of human struggle, the way life goes on even when hope seems to have been all but gone, the development of a family that evolves into a unit as fractured and chaotic as the environment around them. It's a story of love, pain, family and exploitation. It's a clear criticism of how the system of the "greatest country of the world" is broken, and it was written 80 years ago! The way the struggles of a family unravels into the landscape of grief, hard work, and the fight for survival of thousands of individuals is truly astonishing. Steinbeck bounces back from a closer perspective on the Joads to a general read on the current scenario of 'Dust Bowl' migrants during the Great Depression, weaving thoughts, commentary, and warnings into the narrative. Truly one of those books that you feel sad that you won't ever have again the experience of reading it for the first time.

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annapox's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

The story was good. The writing was so detailed as to become boring.

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amehlia's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

“How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past?”

I picked up Steinbeck’s Pulitzer-prize winning novel, The Grapes of Wrath, in a Waterstones in Surrey several years ago and just a few minutes after purchasing had the ending spoiled for me immediately. I didn’t pick it up to read for a long time, but I am so glad I did.

This novel is brilliant and heart-wrenching, it carries you on an immense journey through Dust Bowl America during the Great Depression, beautifully and tragically capturing the plight of the migrant labourers in California in both his extended chapters dedicated to the Joad family and also the alternate shorter chapters that do a fantastic job of contextualising their situation and setting the wider scene. Steinbeck does a fantastic job of hooking you in and committing the reader to the Joads and their story. It took me a long time to finish because I didn’t want the story to be over

and because I knew what tragedy was awaiting the family, and I wasn’t in a hurry to get there,

.

The slow pace of this book meant it took a couple of chapters to get me hooked, but when it did I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I’m not sure what to do with myself now that I’ve finished it. Any book that has this sort of effect on a reader is, in my opinion, an epic novel. It makes for a bold social commentary not just in its own time, but is relevant today with negative attitudes towards migrants, and natural disasters and conflict displacing many more families that will undertake a journey similar to that of the Joads.

Overall, one of my new all-time favourites although I don’t think this will become a re-read. I’m not sure I can put myself through it again.

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bettydraper's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

the last time i read a steinbeck novel i was in 9th grade english. nearly seven years later, i finally decided to pick up the grapes of wrath and boy did i forget how moving steinbeck's works are. it definitely took me a bit to get into the book, but once the story picked up for me i could not stop thinking about it. i was doubtful about his choice to alternate between the joad storyline and society at large but it really hammered in how the experiences of the joad family couldn't be credited to bad luck - everyone at the time (at least farmers and low-income families) was suffering. it's horrifying to think that this book is accurate and that actual, living people had to live in such awful conditions. the worst part? not much has changed!

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