A review by amehlia
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

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

4.5

“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. My only qualms with this book are the occasional racist passages which is not a surprise but not something I will ignore in a book, and the ending felt a little underwhelming. 

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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