Reviews with content warning for Death - Of Mice and Men

Reviews tagging 'Death'

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

214 reviews

spartanjess's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This is a dark and emotional novella by Steinbeck. The Great Depression was a difficult time for many and Steinbeck manages to capture that in a short amount of time - the struggles, hopes, friendships, and more. It is brilliantly written to attach you to the story quickly painting a picture you can easily envision. It also provides a lot of food for thought and discussion. I am glad I revisited this tale that I hadn’t read since high school.

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pony23's review against another edition

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dark sad tense medium-paced

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

1.5

Reading this in school was an awful experience which I can still remember. As a disabled student, watching your peers laugh at the death of a disabled person and have their idea of disabled people as dangerous and animalistic is disheartening to say the least. Of course, adult readers can have different takeaways of the book and come away it’s a more nuanced understanding; however, I found that the book doesn’t convey the injustices well enough to be required reading, and does more harm than good.

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sareidle's review against another edition

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dark sad tense fast-paced

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

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camortiz26's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad fast-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

4.5

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aritacb's review against another edition

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dark sad medium-paced

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

2.5

Surprisingly, this wasn’t boring like I assumed it would be. I can’t lie and say that I didn’t like the story but for this to be such a small book, a huge chunk of it contained racist, abeist, and sexist language. This is book to be taken with a grain of salt because the setting and time it was written obviously had a huge influence on the book.

Steinbeck’s storytelling and use of imagery really drew me in but I hated how the characters who were minorities (autistic man, crippled black man, woman, disabled elderly man) who were in some way dehumanized by the other characters - all of whom were physically capable, neurotypical white men. There were moments that Steinbeck brought humanity to the dehumanized characters but to me it just wasn’t fleshed out enough. The main themes of the book could have hit home more if the story had been longer - maybe more indepth backstories to the different characters, how they are viewed by others and more insight to their individual struggles. Those things were touched on but felt so brief for it to have made more of an impact. The humanization of those characters wasn’t emphasized enough, so the derogatory remarks seem more prevalent. Thus, people who hate this book see it as purely discriminatory.

I get why this won a prize; the storytelling was engaging and the plot was poignant but I’m
not crazy on how American literature like this one slings around slurs or depicts specific people groups. I do feel like this book could have been more subversive for it’s time though if Steinbeck had approached the characters differently. Without the rampant use of discriminatory language or the way he conveyed some of the characters (especially Lennie), they could have been understood instead of viewed as inferior.

This is good if you’re trying to read more classics and don’t want anything daunting in verbiage or length. To say this is enjoyable is subjective though because of the controversial content.

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squirrel66's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Eine Novelle die sich gut lesen lässt. Der Großteil ist recht deskriptiv und dialogreich und hat mich vom Stil an "Gottes Werk und Teufels Beitrag" erinnert, nur ein sehr viel kürzerer Ausschnitt einer Lebensgeschichte. Beim Ende hat sich die Sprache m.M.n. etwas verändert, war ein wenig lyrischer statt sachlicher, was mir gut gefallen hat.
Das Ende hat mich echt etwas fertig gemacht, aber es hat sehr gut gepasst. Hat mir insgesamt gut gefallen und für die Kürze des Buches bleibt es trotzdem im Kopf.

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