A review by alreadyemily
The Jungle by Earl Lee, Kathleen DeGrave, Upton Sinclair

3.0

The first 60% is a 4+ star story about a family of Lithuanian immigrants and the horrors of working in the near packing industry in Chicago around the turn of the century. Eventually though, I lost interest. The reader is shown that foreign immigrants like the Lithuanians are to be pitied and helped but then subjected to reading African Americans talked about in a hideous, sub-human way. How hypocritical and ignorant!

Finally, the plot and the characters are subjugated entirely to provide a seeing for seemingly endless tracts of socialist ideas. If only Upton Sinclair had had more faith in his story and characters. He was doing a fine enough job getting his ideas about the system access - and with a gripping story too - before he had to go and starting beating the reader about the head and neck with his agenda. However it is a historically significant book and I'm still glad I read it.