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aliciaclarereads 's review for:
The Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck
The only work I've ever read of Steinbeck before is [b:The Pearl|5308|The Pearl|John Steinbeck|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1309212365s/5308.jpg|195832], which in a word was torture. So needless to say I did not want to read 600 pages worth of Steinbeck. But he isn't a bad writer. In fact he's an incredible writer. Something that I didn't realize back in eighth grade. It's just his plots... Well he always makes the worst that could happen, happen. And it's really depressing.
The book is setup that you know it's not going to be a happy read. The Joads are poor farmers from Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl. They're kicked off their farms and they travel to California in search of jobs. Yet California is not the land of milk and honey as they thought. Jobs are scarce, money is scarcer and slowly and slowly their family keeps falling apart. Typically when this is the plot of a novel, I am not inclined to read it.
However, there were certain parts of the book that I really liked. Every other chapter was written vaguely talking about all the migrant farmers and their experience as a whole, which reminds you that even though the Joads aren't real, there were actually people who experienced that poverty. Plus the writing was really beautiful in those chapters.
Then, the reason I gave this book a three rather than a two, was the character Ma. The mother of the family, she's actually an incredibly strongly written female character. She acts as emotional support to the whole family, but she eventually turns into the leader of the family. She's the one who gets them into California and keeps the remaining family together through all the trouble they face. Her character was so inspiring and I loved the way she was written. She could have been like any other mother character who's just their and the other characters just sort of take advantage of. Ala the mother in [b:Native Son|15622|Native Son|Richard Wright|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166676407s/15622.jpg|3159084] who was completely irritating and I wanted to punch her. I mean I liked her character but when I started writing my essay, I just went off on a complete tangent that made me realize I didn't altogether hate the book. I didn't love it, but it wasn't as bad as I had originally thought.
The book is setup that you know it's not going to be a happy read. The Joads are poor farmers from Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl. They're kicked off their farms and they travel to California in search of jobs. Yet California is not the land of milk and honey as they thought. Jobs are scarce, money is scarcer and slowly and slowly their family keeps falling apart. Typically when this is the plot of a novel, I am not inclined to read it.
However, there were certain parts of the book that I really liked. Every other chapter was written vaguely talking about all the migrant farmers and their experience as a whole, which reminds you that even though the Joads aren't real, there were actually people who experienced that poverty. Plus the writing was really beautiful in those chapters.
Then, the reason I gave this book a three rather than a two, was the character Ma. The mother of the family, she's actually an incredibly strongly written female character. She acts as emotional support to the whole family, but she eventually turns into the leader of the family. She's the one who gets them into California and keeps the remaining family together through all the trouble they face. Her character was so inspiring and I loved the way she was written. She could have been like any other mother character who's just their and the other characters just sort of take advantage of. Ala the mother in [b:Native Son|15622|Native Son|Richard Wright|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166676407s/15622.jpg|3159084] who was completely irritating and I wanted to punch her. I mean I liked her character but when I started writing my essay, I just went off on a complete tangent that made me realize I didn't altogether hate the book. I didn't love it, but it wasn't as bad as I had originally thought.