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edwardian_girl_next_door's review against another edition
Alright, I didn't make it through this book, but it was bound to happen for two reasons: a crappy English teacher and I don't much enjoy American literature. I feel like this endeavour was doomed from the first; and looking back I'm surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did. I hate leaving a book unfinished, especially when it wasn't necessarily at fault, so the most I can do is leave an explanation. Here it goes.
To take first, my crappy English teacher. I go to a private school, so I'm aware this may be nothing compared to some of y'all's crazy teachers, but for my school, this lady was pretty off the wall. To give you a vague picture, she practically made us write all of our papers from the feminist point of view, and she would cry about her messy divorce and alcoholic dad in class (none of which was adding to the discussion at the time). I tried to enjoy the books we read despite her, but by the end of the year, when we read this book, I was pretty done with her. I wasn't encouraged to continue with the material because I basically received no class insight or analysis and I was too busy to research it on my own. Maybe I'll be more available in the future and can do more research into the time period, author, text, &c. to better appreciate the book.
Secondly, I'm not the biggest fan of American literature, so I didn't particularly take to this book. Pretty self-explanatory. I also discovered Steinbeck isn't my cup of tea. I can appreciate it as literature, but I'd rather read something else. Nothing specific I can pinpoint (besides the often disturbing and violent turns his narratives take), I just don't like it.
One thing I did like about The Grapes of Wrath was Jim Casey. I am endlessly fascinated by priest/clergy characters and their various tropes, and Casey both fit into a priest trope but also maintained nuanced elements to his character. I enjoyed his kindly, loyal, honest nature and his talks with Tom Joad.Actually, I was planning on independently continuing to read (we only read a portion of the novel in class), but I looked ahead a bit and read the section where Casey gets killed. That was the deal-breaker for me. My favourite characters always get killed, and although I did (reluctantly) sign up for the breastfeeding scene at the end, I did NOT sign up for another character death.
Final verdict: a slow, gritty book about hillbilly drama with twinges of violence and vernacular. 2.5 stars; might pick it up again in the future just to say I've read it.
To take first, my crappy English teacher. I go to a private school, so I'm aware this may be nothing compared to some of y'all's crazy teachers, but for my school, this lady was pretty off the wall. To give you a vague picture, she practically made us write all of our papers from the feminist point of view, and she would cry about her messy divorce and alcoholic dad in class (none of which was adding to the discussion at the time). I tried to enjoy the books we read despite her, but by the end of the year, when we read this book, I was pretty done with her. I wasn't encouraged to continue with the material because I basically received no class insight or analysis and I was too busy to research it on my own. Maybe I'll be more available in the future and can do more research into the time period, author, text, &c. to better appreciate the book.
Secondly, I'm not the biggest fan of American literature, so I didn't particularly take to this book. Pretty self-explanatory. I also discovered Steinbeck isn't my cup of tea. I can appreciate it as literature, but I'd rather read something else. Nothing specific I can pinpoint (besides the often disturbing and violent turns his narratives take), I just don't like it.
One thing I did like about The Grapes of Wrath was Jim Casey. I am endlessly fascinated by priest/clergy characters and their various tropes, and Casey both fit into a priest trope but also maintained nuanced elements to his character. I enjoyed his kindly, loyal, honest nature and his talks with Tom Joad.
Final verdict: a slow, gritty book about hillbilly drama with twinges of violence and vernacular. 2.5 stars; might pick it up again in the future just to say I've read it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Animal death, Death, and Murder
Minor: Child death
youmeatunicorn's review against another edition
adventurous
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Miscarriage and Animal death
lowkeymarie's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-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? Yes
4.0
Almost DNF'd this one a few times in the first couple hundred pages but I'm glad I stuck it out. Such a moving story with memorable characters and themes that are still infuriatingly relevant today.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death and Child death
Moderate: Police brutality, Pregnancy, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Murder, Racial slurs, and Classism
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Police brutality, Grief, and Racial slurs
Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, and Child death
gladys_enmarte's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.5
"Grapes of wrath" es una novela escrita por John Steinbeck en el año 1939. Está ambientada en el medio de la gran depresión que sufrió USA en los años 30. Sin suavizar nada y con algunas escenas bastante explícitas, el autor nos relata la travesía de la familia Joad por encontrar trabajo luego de ser expulsados de sus granjas en Oklahoma. Forzados a abandonar todo y cargar solo unas pocas pertenencias, esta familia cruza USA para ir a California, el paraíso abundante de trabajo, en busca de una mejor vida.
Steinbeck en esta novela muestra los horrores y las injusticias que hubo en esa época. Cientos de personas desocupadas y al borde de la miseria dejaban atrás sus hogares en busca de algo mejor, pero al final lo único con lo que se encontraban era con más miseria y con explotación. Los ricos se aprovechaban de la desesperación de esta gente y ofrecían un pago mucho menor de lo correspondido. Los que estaban muy desesperados lo tomaban. Los que se rebelaban eran perseguidos por la ley. Y así, los ricos se hacían más ricos con mano de obra barata y los pobres se hacían todavía más pobres.
La novela, al contener una fuerte crítica social (a la Iglesia también), fue censurada por los políticos conservadores de la época. Les metió el dedo bien en la llaga y no les gustó. Pero como siempre, si algo se prohíbe la gente más curiosidad tiene y más lo consume. Ese fue el caso de este libro, la demanda de ejemplares fue tan grande que la editorial tuvo constantes problemas para satisfacerla.
Resumiendo, un clásico contemporáneo duro de leer, realista - aunque la Iglesia, los políticos y los empresarios negaron la veracidad de los hechos relatados - pero muy recomendado.
Steinbeck en esta novela muestra los horrores y las injusticias que hubo en esa época. Cientos de personas desocupadas y al borde de la miseria dejaban atrás sus hogares en busca de algo mejor, pero al final lo único con lo que se encontraban era con más miseria y con explotación. Los ricos se aprovechaban de la desesperación de esta gente y ofrecían un pago mucho menor de lo correspondido. Los que estaban muy desesperados lo tomaban. Los que se rebelaban eran perseguidos por la ley. Y así, los ricos se hacían más ricos con mano de obra barata y los pobres se hacían todavía más pobres.
La novela, al contener una fuerte crítica social (a la Iglesia también), fue censurada por los políticos conservadores de la época. Les metió el dedo bien en la llaga y no les gustó. Pero como siempre, si algo se prohíbe la gente más curiosidad tiene y más lo consume. Ese fue el caso de este libro, la demanda de ejemplares fue tan grande que la editorial tuvo constantes problemas para satisfacerla.
Resumiendo, un clásico contemporáneo duro de leer, realista - aunque la Iglesia, los políticos y los empresarios negaron la veracidad de los hechos relatados - pero muy recomendado.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Animal death, Murder, and Violence
annapox's review against another edition
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Violence, and Animal death
Moderate: Abandonment, Alcoholism, Blood, Child death, Death of parent, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Murder, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Racism, and Xenophobia
Minor: Cursing, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, Racial slurs, Sexism, Sexual content, Vomit, and Domestic abuse
nisha_27's review against another edition
2.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Animal death, and Cursing
Moderate: Alcohol
Minor: Miscarriage
amehlia's review against another edition
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
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.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Death, Child death, Alcohol, Murder, Police brutality, and Pregnancy
Minor: Racial slurs, Miscarriage, Racism, Religious bigotry, and Sexism
noshelf_control's review against another edition
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
Content Warnings
Minor: Alcoholism, Animal death, Child death, Death, Murder, and Police brutality
elizabeth_lepore's review against another edition
adventurous
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, and Police brutality
Moderate: Racial slurs