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A review by tsushimashu
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
2.0
↪ buddy read with komy
i put off this book for a long time; i got it in december 2022 after finishing east of eden. i was hesitant to begin the grapes of wrath because i didnt think it could surpass east of eden and! i was right!!!
from the first few pages, it drained all of my energy and i was not pulled into the book at all. i thought it'd get better later on, but, unfortunately for me and the poor poor soul i dragged into this buddy read, it did not.
the storyline follows the joad family moving from oklahoma after their land is being taken over by big companies. they go on a journey to california and, with a few deaths and struggles, they try to find work. from reading this little portion i just wrote out, you might think that 'oh! that doesnt seem that boring' but youre wrong. the themes of religion and hope were nice, but they weren't enough to save me from the despair of the thought of having to continue reading this.
the conversations between me and komy regarding our daily reading for this book consisted of this:
"have you finished your reading today"
"no, have you??"
"no lets do it tomorrow"
"okay!!"
this book is incredibly dry, and i usually dont mind dry books as long as the characters are well developed, but these people arent even interesting. this does add a touch of realism to it, considering how regular people don’t always have some out of the world interesting quality about them. so take what i say with a grain of salt.
the only one that i cared about was falsely arrested and there were some characters that had a bit of development and depth to them (rose of sharon and uncle john) and i enjoyed reading about them and what they were going through. however, i didnt feel any strong emotions towards many characters, if any (other than my husband casy!!!). i believe that the mother was written well and is worth noting. she’s the one who kept the family together despite it all, and prevented everyone from giving up. she had no right to give up because she was the glue of the family.
what i did enjoy about this book was the mini chapters where steinbeck begins talking about his philosophy regarding the topics and themes in the book. i really enjoyed these parts because they were like a breath of fresh air from the rest of the book. if the entire book was just these mini chapters, then id have loved it. unfortunately, that wasnt the case.
i can understand why this book is so important to american culture, but, for me personally, i didnt enjoy reading it at all. there truly is some beautiful and creative writing in this book, but the story itself is incredibly slow. the grapes of wrath talks about the tragedy and desperation of those affected by capitalism back in that time, which is still relevant now. what stuck out to me most was the emphasis steinbeck put on the fact that there is no one person to blame, and that is what hurts the most. everything leads back to the banks but even then there is nobody to be angry at, as there is no human embodiment of the banks.
i really enjoyed the ending and i liked the desperation that you could see in each character, overall the book itself was not bad, it was just slow and hard to read. i think steinbeck did a great job with writing the ending and though i didnt see the appeal as strongly as others did, i admit it was a nice story. i can definitely understand why others would like this book, but it’s not for me.
special shoutout to komy for giving me the energy to finish this book despite all of the times i thought about dropping it!! couldnt have done it without you my baby cakes angel sweetheart <3
i put off this book for a long time; i got it in december 2022 after finishing east of eden. i was hesitant to begin the grapes of wrath because i didnt think it could surpass east of eden and! i was right!!!
from the first few pages, it drained all of my energy and i was not pulled into the book at all. i thought it'd get better later on, but, unfortunately for me and the poor poor soul i dragged into this buddy read, it did not.
the storyline follows the joad family moving from oklahoma after their land is being taken over by big companies. they go on a journey to california and, with a few deaths and struggles, they try to find work. from reading this little portion i just wrote out, you might think that 'oh! that doesnt seem that boring' but youre wrong. the themes of religion and hope were nice, but they weren't enough to save me from the despair of the thought of having to continue reading this.
the conversations between me and komy regarding our daily reading for this book consisted of this:
"have you finished your reading today"
"no, have you??"
"no lets do it tomorrow"
"okay!!"
this book is incredibly dry, and i usually dont mind dry books as long as the characters are well developed, but these people arent even interesting. this does add a touch of realism to it, considering how regular people don’t always have some out of the world interesting quality about them. so take what i say with a grain of salt.
the only one that i cared about was falsely arrested and
Spoiler
after he finally showed up again, he was immediately killed. it was heartbreaking but it just made made me more angry than sad.what i did enjoy about this book was the mini chapters where steinbeck begins talking about his philosophy regarding the topics and themes in the book. i really enjoyed these parts because they were like a breath of fresh air from the rest of the book. if the entire book was just these mini chapters, then id have loved it. unfortunately, that wasnt the case.
i can understand why this book is so important to american culture, but, for me personally, i didnt enjoy reading it at all. there truly is some beautiful and creative writing in this book, but the story itself is incredibly slow. the grapes of wrath talks about the tragedy and desperation of those affected by capitalism back in that time, which is still relevant now. what stuck out to me most was the emphasis steinbeck put on the fact that there is no one person to blame, and that is what hurts the most. everything leads back to the banks but even then there is nobody to be angry at, as there is no human embodiment of the banks.
i really enjoyed the ending and i liked the desperation that you could see in each character, overall the book itself was not bad, it was just slow and hard to read. i think steinbeck did a great job with writing the ending and though i didnt see the appeal as strongly as others did, i admit it was a nice story. i can definitely understand why others would like this book, but it’s not for me.
special shoutout to komy for giving me the energy to finish this book despite all of the times i thought about dropping it!! couldnt have done it without you my baby cakes angel sweetheart <3