Well, this one will break your heart.

I don't know how I somehow managed to make it 30 years without reading this. I can understand why my English teachers didn't touch this novel and we definitely covered great literature, but I'm glad so many English teachers do expose students to Steinbeck. Nothing quite captures the Great Depression quite like the near constant heartbreak of this short book.

I've never been a fan of punitive justice and this book only reinforces that. I won't go into it more for fear of spoilers, but this "justice" was one of the greatest miscarriages of justice that I've read in a book.

Lenny's internal conflict near the end of the book brought me to tears. He heard such horrible, degrading talk about himself all his life that it was all he could think of himself. If only people, even George, had said good things to Lenny about himself before this point. But the ending conversation between Lenny and George might be one of the most beautiful conversations in literature, mostly because of its sadness. We readers know what's coming. It's as grueling of a conversation as it was golden. I wanted that conversation to end just as much as I wanted it to never end.

Just beautiful.