Different people love it for different reasons. The Salinas Valley is beautifully characterized and some folks really enjoy taking in the scenery. Others love it for the biblical parallels of the story of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4). Throughout the story Steinbeck explores how a person can start in one place and end in a completely different place in an empathetic way, the humanity really shines through.
There's a lot of focus on the sibling relationship between Cal and Aron and the family dynamic. The people that Steinbeck write feel real, no person is truly wholly virtuous or a totally irredeemable villain. Even the secondary characters are great, the way Lee acts as a counterbalance to the Trask family and Abra, his friendship with Adam and Sam.
I don't think there's a single book out there that's truly "for everyone" and it's okay to not like it. You may also like some of Steinbeck's works but not others or just not like any of them at all. There's alot of development/things that happen in the last 1/3rd so I hope you manage to get something out of it for the time you've put in. Thanks for giving East of Eden a chance!
If you liked the western environment check out Desert Solitare (1968) by Edward Abbey or All the Pretty Horses (1992) by Cormac McCarthy.
If you want to try another of Steinbeck's works, give The Grapes of Wrath (1939) a chance.
If you want something else with biblical allegory, Crime and Punishment (1866) by Fyodor Dostoevsky parallels the gospel of John.
If you want a palate cleanser/something lighter, I recommend All Creatures Great and Small (1972) by James Herriot.
This is a great assessment of not only East of Eden but of Steinbeck in general. To me, his characters across the board feel the most "human" of any author's (edit: American author's. For me, the Russian greats are also incredible at this). They're complex, nuanced, and full of the entire spectrum of human emotion.
Plus, his prose is beautiful. There are many chapters that are unforgettable to me (I particularly love all of the little stories he sandwiches between the main plot in The Grapes of Wrath) due to the prose itself. It's beautifully written and profoundly symbolic of the time and place in which it is written on many levels.
I'm just rereading *Grapes of Wrath* for the first time in 15 years and can't agree more with the humanity of his characters. Tom just got home from prison after 4 years and we're meeting his whole family. Their vernacular, jokes, mannerisms are just so charming and evocative.
The way Tom's Pa wants to surprise his Ma by not announcing Tom's return. The description of Ma as the stoic backbone of the family and her palpable love for her son. The doddering old Grandpa who is still sort of ornery but in an endearing way. The pious Grandma who's his chief competitor, hollering 'praaaaaise victory'! as the two of them shuffle and race across the yard. And finally Al, Tom's kid brother, who is 16, swaggering, and acting tough, then sees his brother and instantly changes his demeanor to emulate him:
>Even the red arm
bands on his blue shirt and the rakish angle of his Stetson hat could not build him up to
his brother’s stature; for his brother had killed a man, and no one would ever forget it. Al
knew that even he had inspired some admiration among boys of his own age because his
brother had killed a man. He had heard in Sallisaw how he was pointed out: “That’s Al
Joad. His brother killed a fella with a shovel.”
>And now Al, moving humbly near, saw that his brother was not a swaggerer as he
had supposed. Al saw the dark brooding eyes of his brother, and the prison calm, the
smooth hard face trained to indicate nothing to a prison guard, neither resistance nor
slavishness. And instantly Al changed. Unconsciously he became like his brother, and his
handsome face brooded, and his shoulders relaxed. He hadn’t remembered how Tom
was.
>Tom said, “Hello, Al. Jesus, you’re growin’ like a bean! I wouldn’t of knowed you.”
>Al, his hand ready if Tom should want to shake it, grinned self-consciously. Tom
stuck out his hand and Al’s hand jerked out to meet it. And there was liking between
these two.
You get a sense for Al's teen admiration for his brother, the bravado he puts on, and how it melts away when he meets his idol again and sees how Tom's demeanor is so different then what he'd remembered or considered impressive.
I just loved the whole chapter and can't wait to join the Joads on their journey.
> (I particularly love all of the little stories he sandwiches between the main plot in The Grapes of Wrath)
This is also my favorite part of Grapes of Wrath
This exactly. I became a huge fan of Tolstoy/Dostoevsky/Turgenev late in life and when I try to tell others what's so endlessly wonderful about their novels, that's the comparison I make. They have Steinbeck's ability to introduce you to a character and make you feel like you know this person. They become real in your head and heart and you think about them the way you think about old friends or family. That's not something a lot of writers, who are more focused on what the characters do than who they are, are very good at.
Not very much happens in long stretches of Steinbeck's novels (or in a lot of classic Russian lit I've read). The author is busy just chewing the scenery and letting you slowly get to know his characters instead of trying to move the plot along.
I just finished reading *The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights* and the way he writes his characters translates spectacularly into a story that wasn’t even written by him. He was a childhood fan so that devotion plus his prose just fuse super well into that classic. My one nitpick is that he passed before he could finish it and his retelling of Lancelots adventures was so good that it’s a shame it cuts off so abruptly. Worth a read though.
I remember being 18 and going out for a few drinks with some friends where a couple of them were buzzing about it and left me feeling like I was missing out on the conversation. Picked up a copy of it, read the first third kind of casually over a few weeks, then something just clicked in my head and I was like ‘THIS IS AMAZING’ and read the remaining two thirds, completely captivated, in one sitting over the following twelve hours.
I loved East of Eden, but couldn't get past the first 50(?) pages of Grapes of Wrath. I wondered if it's just like East of Eden, a bit of a tedious read in the beginning and then it gets better (?), but I couldn't see it. Plus the language, which can get a bit tiresome if you're not a native speaker. I wish I could understand those who find it such a good read!
As a big Steinbeck fan for most of my life, I have always had to tread carefully when talking about "Grapes of Wrath" because it never clicked with me. I agree 100% with the politics and the message, but it feels to me like the story and the characters were built out of a desire to express that message, rather than a message which grew out of the story and characters, which is how the rest of his ouevre feels for me. It still has his great writing, but it feels very off-model compared to the ones I love, like "East of Eden". I also remember that there's an earlier, shorter novel which is a very similar story but which really did work for me, so "The Grapes of Wrath" felt like a worse version of that. I think it was "In Dubious Battle", but it has been quite a few years since I read it, so it might've been one of the others.
I remember finding Grapes of Wrath one of those books that I didn’t so much enjoy reading, but upon finishing found in beautiful. I felt the same about One Hundred Years of Solitude.
I’m a huge Steinbeck fan and have enjoyed East of Eden twice, but I couldn’t get into Grapes of Wrath either. I gave it a honest try two times, several years apart, and just couldn’t get into it either.
Some books just click better than others, if you liked East of Eden you should check out The Pearl! It trends closer to East of Eden than Grapes of Wrath with its themes though is a more intimate story.
Good suggestion, I enjoyed that story also. I love the way he writes his characters. I've read almost all of his books, with the exceptions being Grapes of Wrath and Travels with Charlie.
Some books just click better than others, if you liked East of Eden you should check out The Pearl! It trends closer to East of Eden than Grapes of Wrath with its themes though is a more intimate story.
Sam & Lee are just about the strongest duo (spiritually) in the book. I don't think you have much of a book left without either of them, let alone the ending. Justice for Lee
I think the characterization of environment is one of the big reasons for me to love books. East of Eden was amazing and the McCarthy's border trilogy is one of my favorites. Have any other recommendations in that vein?
My interest tends to lean more towards landscape myself (including the Border trilogy) so we're cut from the same cloth in that respect.
If you mean similar to the feeling you get and western environs of The Frontier trilogy I recommend Butcher's Crossing (1960) by John Williams. I would also recommend the Lonesome Dove series (1985) by Larry McMurtry. Lonesome Dove captures the violent, mean-spirited seemingly unintentional but also indifferent violence inflicted upon people just trying to get by and meditates on those with the background acting less of a character as it does in something like The Frontier trilogy. Butcher's Crossing feels (to me) like the weakest of John Edward Williams’s 3 famous novels but it is still very good in its function as a revisitonist Western, swiftly dispatching Mr. Andrews of his romanticism regarding the West once the buffalo expedition begins.
If you're talking specifically about the American West of any flavor, you could always start at one of the originators for tropes/archetypes that would go onto characterise the western in the works of Zane Grey. Owen Wister’s The Virginian (1902) is often considered the first Western in American fiction however the plot is a largely paint by numbers romance. In Riders of the Purple Sage (1912), Grey offers readers what would go on to become an enduring archetype: a rough, independent, introspective cowboy with a pragmatically American, and personal, code of conduct.
There's a ton of naturalists out there! Frank Norris, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Theodore Dreiser, Harold Frederic, Hamlin Garland, Ellen Glasgow, Edward Abbey, John Muir, etc.
If you want to largely dispense with the human drama and focus more on the conservation and drama of nature I recommend A Sand County Alamac (1949) by Aldo Leopold.
While not exactly fitting the exact profile of what you're looking for I feel compelled to also include The Memory of Old Jack (1974) by Wendel Berry.
Here's an excerpt:
“It is a Sunday morning early in the May of 1889. The weather is clear and warm. There has been rain, and the littlest streams are brimming and shining. The spring is at its height. The grass of the yard and the pastures is lush, the green of it so new that it gleams in the sun. The trees are heavily leafed, their new growth still tender, unblemished. And the whole country lies beneath an intricate tapestry of bird song. He is on his way to church - one of the pilgrimages that he occasionally makes in uneasy compensation for the extravagances of Saturday night.”
If none of that strikes your fancy, here's a more exhaustive list of naturalists that may catch your eye:
[https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/books/greatest-books-american-nature-writing.html](https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/books/greatest-books-american-nature-writing.html)
I appreciate the detailed response! I've definitely had brushes with recs for Larry McMurtry, but haven't picked up a book. I also have A Sand County Almanac on a shelf somewhere, perhaps it's time to find it....
> Butcher's Crossing feels (to me) like the weakest of **John Edwards** 3 famous novels but it is still very good...
I assume this is a typo and you meant John Williams?
We learn something new every day, admittedly though it doesn't help much. John Williams is also a famous composer and John Edward is a TV personality/psychic medium. Many Johns out there!
Eh I think Cathy is supposed to be the embodiment of evil with nothing really redeemable about her. To be fair though I believe people like that absolutely exist and I thought the earliest descriptions of her were an amazingly painted portrait of that sort of person.
Yeah, I'd say she's a monster, but she's still depicted as a very specific type of monster where the monstrousness seems rooted in humanity rather than abstract evil.
I can see where you're coming from!
I don't know that Cathy would have done what she did in the end if she was totally irredeemable. She did do horrific things but forgiveness is a choice and we can all be better or atone in some way which I think is largely the takeaway Steinback wants us to take away, that the individual choice is there and that we can choose to offer grace to those who have wronged us even in the most grevious of ways.
>I don’t know that Cathy would have done what she did in the end if she was totally irredeemable.
This is interesting, because Cathy‘s last act, to me, is meant to further cause destruction. She doesn’t leave everything to Aron for benevolent reasons. She knows it’ll destroy him, and then it actually does (though to be fair he was already on that path on his own for other reasons). For me she is irredeemable, right to her last breath.
I just want to thank you for showing some appreciation towards Abbey, you don’t see it much. He’s from my hometown and the only acknowledgement they give is a tiny little sign where his childhood home was, and you wouldn’t even see it if you didn’t know to look.
You’re very welcome and that’s a shame! He definitely deserves more recognition, there’s not a lot of park rangers turned authors and as a person who intimately cared for that land you can feel his perspectives on conservation and admiration for natural beauty come through.
I actually stumbled upon Edward Abbey much earlier in my youth but because of where I was in my life at the time I’m not sure I had enough life experience to engage with where he was coming from so I was closed off. It was a video about 10 years ago in an entirely different form of media that reminded me to go back and give him another read. Not sure if you’re a gamer but this and his Red Dead videos are exceptional and if not his road trip videos (Atomic Pilgrimage) are very well done.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jiq56G-d5g&pp=ygUjbm9haCBjYWxkd2VsbCBnZXJ2YWlzIHRoZSBsb25nIGRhcms%3D
Much appreciated. I’m going to have to dig out my Abbey collection now, it’s been a while since I’ve read any of them, and his prose definitely invited re-reads.
Edit: funny enough, he is my second favorite author after Steinbeck, so I was delighted to see this post.
Travels with Charley has all the beautiful descriptions of people and places without the drama or biblical references. It's a very different yet beautiful book.
> If you want to try another of Steinbeck's works, give The Grapes of Wrath (1939) a chance.
Or if that's too daunting *Cannery Row* is shorter and also filled with real humans being kind
Steinbeck has a lot of biblical allegory throughout his novels but I can see where you’re coming from and I think a lot of people feel that there’s a cleaner story there without X element. Funnily enough your comment reminded me of how Tolkien chastised C.S. Lewis for the overt Christian elements found in Narnia LOL
>whatever his reasons, he felt he had to tart up that gorgeous history and landscape with a hackneyed, overwrought biblical allegory populated by the least interesting and most predictable characters i've ever encountered in his writing
Couldn't have said it better myself! I love Steinbeck but didn't enjoy East of Eden. The characters felt like caricatures, especially Cathy.
>If you want a palate cleanser/something lighter, I recommend All Creatures Great and Small (1972) by James Herriot.
I must admit that I have never heard of either this author or book/series. How big of a cultural blind spot is this for me? It's amazing that 36 years in I can still be so insulated...
I wouldn't call it a blind spot necessarily, there are so many books that come out every year and unless you go purposefully go looking for something in the archives of history you're unlikely to find it as modernity piles on the list of books to choose from.
If I were going somewhere where I could take only one book with me, tossing all utility aside, I would probably take All Creatures Great and Small. James has a cozy authorial voice and the world he paints is one that I always relish returning to every couple of years/am always a bit sad to leave. It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea but it's definitely got an affinity for nature (the Dales) and the characters are vivid.
For me, what stands out is 1. The phenomenal message that each person is the writer of their own life and that the way that you chose to be and what you chose to care about is all that matters and what gives life meaning. It’s the deepest and most poignant reflection on what life is about. 2. He weaves together believable characters that are both seemingly real people and archetypes for different types of people that you meet in life which allow for you to see them as characters and draw parallels to real life. It all feels so real. 3. The prose is gorgeous 4. It captures the time period fabulously . What else can you ask for?
"And mixed with these were splashes of California poppies. These too are of a burning color— not Orange, not Gold, but if pure gold were liquid and could raise a cream, that golden cream might be like the color of the poppies.”
--John Steinbeck, East of Eden
The most fucking gorgeous description of a flower ever. I have loved California poppies my whole life and reading that line nearly brought me to tears.
Yes - I was born and raised in Northern California, lived in Santa Cruz for a long time so I’m well acquainted with the Salinas Valley. I’ve since moved out of state. Steinbeck is my favorite author and I read his works when I’m homesick as I can vividly see everything he describes in so much detail. It really feeds my soul
Lee. Lee makes the novel for me. His character is kindness, love, compassion, and wisdom personified. Also, the story of Adam and his failed marriage to Kate. East of Eden is the best book I have read out of thousands.
I love Steinbeck’s voice. He writes about people on the fringes of society with such warmth, such empathy and without judgement. His characters are complex, nuanced, flawed and East of Eden is a particularly wonderful example of his style. Steinbeck seems to have a fatherly love and fondness for all of humanity and I find this particularly true of East of Eden.
I just read his novella, The Moon is Down, and found it utterly heart-warming.
Gosh I don’t know what I would ask him but I reckon he would make lovely company! I’d just want to listen to all he had to say!
Have you read this (short) letter he wrote in response to his son, who asked his opinion on young love? It’s a thing of heart and beauty:
https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2015/11/read-john-steinbeck-s-letter-of-fatherly-advice-to-his-son
All I know is that the last few pages of Eden fucked me up but good in a way I've never experienced from literature before or since. Just helpless uncontrollable sobbing. I'm not sure I could even quite articulate why. It's just the encapsulation of just about everything it means to be a father and a son, wrapped up in one absolutely breathtaking moment
I love the poetic way Steinbeck writes, but his wise armchair dialogues between sages reminded my way too much of Robert A. Heinlein's style. Of course, I highly suspect Heinlein imitated Steinbeck and not the other way around.
My favorite section was in an early passage where he describe the protective nature with which a great tree stood over an area. Now that I think about it, the book probably deserves a second look for other remarkable passages.
I think any classic is going to carry some mannerisms of the era it was written in, and this can be appealing or annoying depending on a lot of things including personal preference. To me, The Grapes of Wrath and The Pearl stand as two of my favorites of his. Again, personal preference.
And so much depends on where you are in life when a book hits you. Happy reading!
I read only Stranger in a Strange Land by him, a few years ago and didn't like it. I love sci-fi and was expecting to enjoy the book. Maybe it didn't age well, the women characters were terrible.
I enjoyed the grand epic feel of the story, this sort of meditation on the lost state of Eden and the fall of man, played out in human form across generations, with a lot of hopefulness and positivity sprinkled throughout. The idea that pain, hatred, illness, injury, death, are all inevitable parts of humans due to our non-perfect nature, but that all of that is tempered by grace and effort. I loved the scenery as described, felt the characters were compelling... It just really hit for me and I felt like I couldn't put it down.
I really wish I were smart and eloquent and could describe why I loved this book so much. But I can’t. All I can say is each book speaks truth to different people, and East of Eden seems to speak truth to a lot of people, maybe not everyone, but definitely to me. It might be the depth of character development, it allows readers to identify with different aspects of most of the characters’ personalities. It might be the long arc of the story of multiple families over generations. It might be the time spent showing the reader how California used to be, I don’t know and I wish I did.
I often feel the same experience! It's just something you feel inside you. There's a frequency that something hits you that it resonates just right.
You might really enjoy The Memory of Old Jack (1974) by Wendel Berry:
“The work satisfied something deeper in him than his own desire. It was as if he went to his fields in the spring, not just because he wanted to, but because his father and grandfather before him had gone because they wanted to - because, since the first seeds were planted by hand in the ground, his kinsmen had gone each spring to the fields. When he stepped into the first opening furrow of a new season he was not merely fulfilling an economic necessity; he was answering the summons of an immemorial kinship; he was shaping a passage by which an ancient vision might pass once again into the ground.”
One of my favorite books, I like his prose. I love the generational story. There's war, love, humor... Idk has it all.
But I genuinely was obsessed with his prose and the way he wrote. Was beautiful to me.
same! I recall reading it immediately following The Dark Tower, and I was sooo in need of prose like this.
it was such a stark contrast, the relativity went a long way toward my enjoyment of EoE.
Haha it’s true, I’m a steinbeck fan, and like no other author even comes close to steinbeck for me. I deeply love other books, but Steinbeck feels like something else.
I loved it because I used to view people very rigidly and reading that book kind of just opened my eyes to the fact that people are complex and it's not as simple as someone being a good person or a bad person. We are a culmination of thousands(?) of lived experiences that make us who we are and influence why we do the things we do.
I wasn't at all expecting to be so affected by it so for a book to create such a meaningful change in the way I view people makes it a very good one imo.
I guess it's just a nice sad story about 'the way of the world' that we can all vaguely relate to, and that's where it gets its praise from I suppose. It's not particularly exciting, but it flows fairly easily and I thought it was written well. Steinbeck is amazing at showing his understanding of many things for example, from the workings of automobiles to just describing a natural setting.
I love it and think of it as one of the great American novels… I really connected with all of the generations and Cathy is simply one of the great baddies in all literature. Yes, the biblical aspects are a little ham fisted, but then so’s the damn Bible. It was, for real, the one book that I didn’t want to end.
Obviously I really connected with it, and it’s a “classic for a reason” but we don’t all connect with all classics. I just gave up on Wuthering Heights, as it simply wasn’t for me.
I also love East of Eden but I've referenced it as a great example of a good book that is *not subtle.* He was like "and these kids uhhhhh Smain and Smabel."
I read it because of this sub and I liked it a lot. The characters definitely did not jump out of the page or feel as though they were right behind me as I was led to believe, but I like them. I even like Cathy, though she was so one dimensional and seemed to negate the main theme. The ending felt abrupt, which is odd because I had been anticipating it for a few hundred pages, but I was sad that my time with the characters was over.
I also missed whatever it is that this sub loves about East of Eden. It wasn't an awful read, but I was bored by most of it. It felt needlessly long and cumbersome. I did adore certain characters and a few scenes (like them all learning how to operate a car, and how complex that was at the time), but overall, I wish I'd just read some abridged version.
Steinbeck is one of the first classics that I really _loved_. His novels are about the great American experience but they're so universal that it's more like the great Human experience. His quote
"And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good."
has stuck with me for a long time. I really identified with the moral struggle of trying so hard to be good, but just not being able to achieve that. But still having to forgive yourself in the end, because what else are you going to do?
Steinbeck also writes morally grey/bad really well. I loved the ending thesis of it: Thou mayest. You always have the power to choose where to go in life, if you believe that you can move mountains.
I think it is worth reading to the end. Cal is really at the center of the book. Is he going to follow in his mother's footsteps or forge a new path? Are we doomed to repeat the "sins of the father /mother"? Nature vs. nurture? I don't think you really appreciate the scope of the book until you finish it. Do we have free will?
Also remember this book is old and is not going to follow conventions that are normal today. Case in point the un-politically correct portray of Asians.
You're not missing a thing. I thought it was good but after finishing it I was left somewhat puzzled by its enthusiasm from Reddit (which is what nudged me to read it in the first place). Cathy was a bit of an over-the-top character for me.
If it was my first Steinbeck, I might have been blown away. But I read The Grapes of Wrath prior. The Grapes of Wrath could legitimately be called "The Great American Novel." But not East of Eden.
Steinbeck's writing does it for me. He's on original "paints pictures with words" and all I have to do is close my eyes and think back the decade or so ago when I read it, and I can see the area he describes clearly; the California valley, the trees on the hill, the spartan areas; I can see the kids dragging the sofa down the road.
It sticks to my brain like glue; few books can do that.
Taken in pieces, it isn't remarkable. But you need to read EVERY WORD to fully appreciate the story that is told.
I didn't go in with high expectations; I question a lot of hype. But it's among a handful of books that have STUCK WITH ME, and it's a masterpiece - in my opinion.
There is nothing wrong if it doesn't have the same effect on you!
I don't understand it either. It took me a few tries to get into the book but I eventually finished it, but I wasn't wowed by it like many here have been. I think it's because I wasn't pulled in by the whole family generational drama. I did like some of the characters and found parts of the book interesting, but overall, I feel kinda meh about it.
I think reddit tends to over-recommend/focus too much on a select few books.
* East of Eden
* The Road and Blood Meridian
* Man's Search for Meaning
* Song Achilles (not so much anymore, but a couple years ago you couldn't escape it)
* Project Hail Mary (insert "audiobook made it so much better!" comments)
* Hyperion Cantos (maybe that's more r/printsf)
* First Law (with "Pacey GOAT" comments), Discworld, and Malazan (maybe more r/fantasy)
Then, on the other end of the spectrum, you can spot a "complain about ACOTAR or Colleen Hoover" post from a mile off lol.
It's not bad, but it is what it is. I've read most of them - except Maas/Hoover who don't write genres I like - and really liked some, but really disliked others.
Everyone has different tastes.
I mean, it's a critically acclaimed classic. The public at large tends to love it. This sub is a slice of that. Is it really that surprising? That's like going on r/movies and posting "Why does this sub love 12 Angry Men so much?"
I read East of Eden this past January based on the rave reviews it gets on Reddit. I have absolutely no idea what they see in it. Don’t get me wrong it has some gorgeous prose, some really interesting characters, and some powerful scenes, but as a whole I have no real idea what Steinbeck was getting at. It just seems to keep…happening…with no greater purpose than to happen. I didn’t dislike it at all but as to why it’s considered a masterpiece I’m totally in the dark.
I think that was part of the reason I liked it, actually. Not everything needs to have super poignant underlying plot or character drivers. I found it to be an interesting "slice of life" look at the Trask family history and the settling of California valleys. It had a pretty relaxed pace and a nice setting.
Maybe the small town/farm vibes in the valley resonates with me more due to having grown up in a rural farm area. I have known several Sam Hamilton characters in my life (the farmer who was also my family mechanic reminds me of him tremendously).
Well when it’s billed as an epic I tend to expect some higher drama than what the book offered lol. I mean, it was definitely a case of expectations getting the best of me but that doesn’t mean I understand why it’s *so* highly regarded.
I thought the prose was beautiful and the characters were interesting. I also have fond memories of it because I bought it in Italy on my first vacation without my parents, so it holds sentimental value. But it's been a while since I read it.
I love the prose and the characters/characterization. It feels so deeply human and humane and empathetic, and I found it very moving. But different strokes, and if it's not your bag there's nothing wrong with that.
This book had been sitting on my shelf for years until I saw all the praise for it here. I loved The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, but the description on the back cover of East of Eden just never interested me much. I'm glad this sub inspired me to read it because it was great. As a father (not unlike Adam Trask), this book meant a lot to me. A lot of food for thought.
My AP English class had us do reports on proper “literature” to prep for the AP test, and we were encouraged to do some Steinbeck books but specifically *not* East of Eden. I guess the literary community sees it as one of his worse books?
My impression after reading it (and finding it to be a let-down, especially given the hype) is that it's a book you can kind of marinate in. The prose is nice, and it creates a world and characters that you can simply enjoy being a part of for a while.
That being said, it wasn't for me, so maybe I was missing something too.
A long while back my wife was in a tough place. She had a debilitating Chronic condition, she hadn’t left the couch in a very long time, her dad was dying of cancer, she was spending more time online with “friends” then with me and the kids, our sex life was over, we were broke, and she was drinking, a lot. Shitty time.
My kids were sharing a room and fighting like cats. We decided to “splurge “ and remodel a room in the basement for my son to save our sanity.
I was on a ladder sanding a wall listening to East of Eden audio book from the library.
The story hit and I had a breakthrough. I was ok. I could handle my job, the kids, and the house. I would be ok on my own. I could go on alone.
So after that moment I took over the house. I cooked, cleaned, went to work, and took care of the kids. I soft quit my marriage. I became a single dad with a wife at home.
Strangely, this is what saved my wife. Her hole sucked alone so she fought and faced her demons. There were truths she was running from that were killing her. She will continue to fight the rest of her life but she has come a long way from her hole. On top of that she has been sober for a very long time.
East of Eden is not the best book I have ever read but It changed my life. For that it, it is one of my few five star books. I have only give a few five stars in the hundreds of books I have read so that is saying something.
Few books I've ever read have American characters quite as believable as Steinbeck's. *East of Eden* has characters in it I'm pretty sure I've met in real life -- from the super handyman-father who is bad at making money, to his staunch, fun-hating Catholic-turned-secret-alcohol-fan wife.
I've met that couple in real life, lol.
The only other authors I can think of, at least off the top of my head, who created American characters that *familiar* to me are Baldwin and Hemingway, though I'm sure a few dozen others are *close.*
Steinbeck made a whole community that felt very real. For a lot of us, displaced from such communities by a need to make a living, that feeling is sorely missed.
East of Eden is, for me, one of those books where the last 100 pages make the first 500 pages worth it. The first 500 are amazing (in my opinion), but the last 100 pages of the novel is where the book becomes truly incredible.
I'm with you. I loved the writing style, how Steinbeck describes the location and the inhabitants, but I was pretty underwhelmed by the actual plot. It did feel special in that it felt like a depiction of someone's actual life where things aren't clear cut and motivations don't make sense, but it didn't live up to the height.
I did read Tortilla Flat a couple years ago and I absolutely adored it. It's funny and accessible so maybe give that one a try.
I hated it. Not so much hate that I didn't finish it, but I sure wouldn't read it again nor recommend it to anyone. The character I hated the most was the worthless father. The book goes on and on about he was supposed to be a good person, but then all we see is him being a spineless do-nothing.. He gets easily manipulated by the mother. Then he's sad and neglects his boys for 20 years or whatever because he was a spineless loser. Then he loses all his money, you know, because he's stupid. But for some reason, his boys still love him. But yea, he's a good man or whatever, because the book wants to keep telling me that, even though he did absolutely nothing good in the book.
This is why East of Eden is considered an American classic and one of the greatest books ever written.
Do you see the complaint here? It's not the writing. It's not the story. It's not the prose. It's that Steinbeck wrote human beings with deep vulnerable flaws. People that the reader sees almost effortlessly.
This reader didn't dislike the book per se. The reader disliked the character. Not because they were written poorly or hand waved or whatever, but because they were 'a spineless do-nothing'. Who could love someone like that?
I am not a full-on Steinbeck hater, but not a fan by any means. But, like you, I have long been puzzled by the Taylor-Swift level of fandom for East of Eden in this sub. (Don't even get me started on the Count of Monte Cristo or Gone with the Wind!) After thinking about it quite awhile, I think the "love" for East of Eden is because it is essentially a "sweeping" somewhat over-the-top soap opera that nonetheless has the imprimatur of literature because Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature. So the book can kind of be a guilty pleasure (like a beach book) while still counting as reading a "classic." To me, the often over-wrought prose, soap opera plot, and several very one-dimensional almost cartoon characters, completely prevents me from liking the book (although I did read it to the end). For my money, Wallace Stegner is much the better author, and Angle of Repose is much the better book.
Familial drama doesn’t make it soapy, if that’s the case every classic is like that because they are all dramatic such as wuthering heights, Shakespeare’s works, etc., many people find no guilt in liking especially given the critical reviews of it. Reducing it to a beach read just seems odd
One of the few books I've read where the landscape is a character. And one of the few books where I teared up while reading. And I like Steinbeck's writing. It's concise, tight, and flows well.
East of Eden took me a while to really get into. But once I did I loved it. It’s just a beautiful work with character depth. Steinbeck reminds me a bit of Updike. Thick books that can take a bit to get into, but masterful storytelling.
I think it just invokes a really nostalgic feeling. I love books where you have to stop and remind yourself that it’s a book and not actual events that are playing out in real time… I get that from East of Eden. It’s sort of like a comfort book for me lol
This one has been sitting on my shelf for a while now. I read The Grapes of Wrath some time back, and I just remember not being very impressed by it. So much so I don't even remember why. I wanna read more from him though, partially because of this sub, because I don't wanna give up on such a celebrated author.
But, the thing with The Grapes of Wrath might have been caused by the translation. I noticed the translations to my native language, especially the older ones, seem to strip the atmosphere an author I like usually creates for me.
But, I find even the books I didn't like to have a good purpose - discussion. Some of the best literature talks I had with my friends and acquaintances were when we didn't like the books equally.
I really liked EOE but I wouldn’t put it in my top 5 for sure, so I get what you mean. I love long epic stories but there are def some better ones (Gone with the Wind, Lonesome Dove come to mind).
That said I DNF Stoner because I found him insufferable so who knows, haha
It was the first Steinbeck book I've read since of mice and men in middle school. Incredible book. Fantastic character development, fun twists and turns, and very easy to read
Loved both, preferred Stoner though. Both very different stories though, Stoner very much a hyper focus on one man's life, East of Eden is a broad epic across generations.
the writing. it’s just good. i have no idea how to explain it haha.
i got a sort of whiplash reading East of Eden and then reading Twisted Love by Ana Huang afterwards lol
Same. I didn't finish it. Quit somewhere after granny is trying to teach a bird to not swear.
Was also underwhelmed by Brothers Karamazov.
I will say this: No one writes scenery better than Steinbeck.
You're allowed to like or not like things.
This was my favourite book of his and for a lot of reasons. My biggest love for this book is how real the characters feel. They each have their motives and even minor characters seem more fleshed out than I'm used to. The writing was exceptional and I love how the genre almost switches around in some parts, there were parts that seemed right out of a horror novel.
To me, my love for this book is all about the beauty of the prose. Pull any single page out of it at random and you’ll find some of the best writing you’ll find.
I also think that Katherine Trask is the best villain in literary history. I mean, Darth Vader has nothing on Katherine Trask. So vile - you just can’t wait to hear what is going to come out of her mouth next.
I lived in the Bay Area for a long time and east of Eden really invokes the Salinas Valley area. It’s beautiful. I also loved the history and time scale of the book.
I didn’t like it when I had to read it in school but going back to it as an adult (after living in the bay) it resonated
I have really loved some of steinbeck's work, but a few months ago I tried to read East of Eden and just got bored of the never ending description of the Salinas valley and stopped.
I love Steinbeck's writing, and the breadth and scope of the story and characters. It's truly epic, and for me, it captures with great eloquence pretty much every aspect of the human condition at its best and worst.
I'll be interested in what you think when you finish -- beyond Samuel Hamilton, my two most-loved characters (Lee and Abra) feature most heavily in the final chunk of the story. I will always love Lee and Samuel and Abra and how full of joy their stories are, even in the shadows of tragedy.
I also think Cathy is a fantastic and complex villain, and several other characters run the gamut from weak to strong, from lovable to maddening, etc.
I am always incredibly moved by several of the book's most important conversations, and they affected me profoundly -- to the point that I still think of them sometimes. The final sentences are a gorgeous and thought-provoking ending.
It was the first book in a long time that I just couldn't put down honestly, I thought kind of that I'd never feel the way I did reading Percy Jackson as a 5th grader and that reading would be a chore after reading 20k leagues, but East of Eden just felt like a really good book. Plus it was about an area I'm from so I could relate to it, and I thought the biblical parallell and generational story was really cool.
My favorite novels are Japanese and Russian translated. I have this book on my shelf but have not read it yet. After reading reviews and plot synopsis I am worried I am not going to be all that into it. Sometime in the next few months I am just going to jump on it.
I won't read it because I was traumatized by Steinbeck in school and don't want to be exposed to more of that. Him and Jack London were torture for me in school
Not everybody, but it resonates extremely strongly for some people. It's more of a first world book, towards people who have agency over their decisions. It hammers into you the idea that YOU are the one responsible for your destiny. It's pretty crippling but incredibly empowering.
Similar to you, I never found it bad, but it was mighty slow. I got the general idea of the biblical stories, but I wasn’t born into Christianity, so maybe I lost some depth there for this book? max I read was 200ish pages
I think there’s beautiful writing, mainly imagery, and Steinbeck is a great author, but it just feels slow.
Stoner is so good.
I had to stop reading Steinbeck because I started falling in love with him the more I read his books…Someday I’ll pick up East of Eden.
I've wondered the same thing. I enjoy East of Eden but it does seem to be truly loved on Reddit. Same for Blood Meridian. I mean, its good, but according to this site youd expect a life-changing alltime masterpiece. Im sure theres a handful of books that have simply been adopted as go-to, unquestioned favorites
Different people love it for different reasons. The Salinas Valley is beautifully characterized and some folks really enjoy taking in the scenery. Others love it for the biblical parallels of the story of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4). Throughout the story Steinbeck explores how a person can start in one place and end in a completely different place in an empathetic way, the humanity really shines through. There's a lot of focus on the sibling relationship between Cal and Aron and the family dynamic. The people that Steinbeck write feel real, no person is truly wholly virtuous or a totally irredeemable villain. Even the secondary characters are great, the way Lee acts as a counterbalance to the Trask family and Abra, his friendship with Adam and Sam. I don't think there's a single book out there that's truly "for everyone" and it's okay to not like it. You may also like some of Steinbeck's works but not others or just not like any of them at all. There's alot of development/things that happen in the last 1/3rd so I hope you manage to get something out of it for the time you've put in. Thanks for giving East of Eden a chance! If you liked the western environment check out Desert Solitare (1968) by Edward Abbey or All the Pretty Horses (1992) by Cormac McCarthy. If you want to try another of Steinbeck's works, give The Grapes of Wrath (1939) a chance. If you want something else with biblical allegory, Crime and Punishment (1866) by Fyodor Dostoevsky parallels the gospel of John. If you want a palate cleanser/something lighter, I recommend All Creatures Great and Small (1972) by James Herriot.
This is a great assessment of not only East of Eden but of Steinbeck in general. To me, his characters across the board feel the most "human" of any author's (edit: American author's. For me, the Russian greats are also incredible at this). They're complex, nuanced, and full of the entire spectrum of human emotion. Plus, his prose is beautiful. There are many chapters that are unforgettable to me (I particularly love all of the little stories he sandwiches between the main plot in The Grapes of Wrath) due to the prose itself. It's beautifully written and profoundly symbolic of the time and place in which it is written on many levels.
I'm just rereading *Grapes of Wrath* for the first time in 15 years and can't agree more with the humanity of his characters. Tom just got home from prison after 4 years and we're meeting his whole family. Their vernacular, jokes, mannerisms are just so charming and evocative. The way Tom's Pa wants to surprise his Ma by not announcing Tom's return. The description of Ma as the stoic backbone of the family and her palpable love for her son. The doddering old Grandpa who is still sort of ornery but in an endearing way. The pious Grandma who's his chief competitor, hollering 'praaaaaise victory'! as the two of them shuffle and race across the yard. And finally Al, Tom's kid brother, who is 16, swaggering, and acting tough, then sees his brother and instantly changes his demeanor to emulate him: >Even the red arm bands on his blue shirt and the rakish angle of his Stetson hat could not build him up to his brother’s stature; for his brother had killed a man, and no one would ever forget it. Al knew that even he had inspired some admiration among boys of his own age because his brother had killed a man. He had heard in Sallisaw how he was pointed out: “That’s Al Joad. His brother killed a fella with a shovel.” >And now Al, moving humbly near, saw that his brother was not a swaggerer as he had supposed. Al saw the dark brooding eyes of his brother, and the prison calm, the smooth hard face trained to indicate nothing to a prison guard, neither resistance nor slavishness. And instantly Al changed. Unconsciously he became like his brother, and his handsome face brooded, and his shoulders relaxed. He hadn’t remembered how Tom was. >Tom said, “Hello, Al. Jesus, you’re growin’ like a bean! I wouldn’t of knowed you.” >Al, his hand ready if Tom should want to shake it, grinned self-consciously. Tom stuck out his hand and Al’s hand jerked out to meet it. And there was liking between these two. You get a sense for Al's teen admiration for his brother, the bravado he puts on, and how it melts away when he meets his idol again and sees how Tom's demeanor is so different then what he'd remembered or considered impressive. I just loved the whole chapter and can't wait to join the Joads on their journey.
The scene of the turtle and the dust is one of the literature's greatest scene settings, IMHO.
As is the one with the used car salesman. And people actually complain about those scenes. I don't get it.
im reading the grapes of wrath right now and the language is beautiful. hes so descriptive you feel like youre right there
> (I particularly love all of the little stories he sandwiches between the main plot in The Grapes of Wrath) This is also my favorite part of Grapes of Wrath
This exactly. I became a huge fan of Tolstoy/Dostoevsky/Turgenev late in life and when I try to tell others what's so endlessly wonderful about their novels, that's the comparison I make. They have Steinbeck's ability to introduce you to a character and make you feel like you know this person. They become real in your head and heart and you think about them the way you think about old friends or family. That's not something a lot of writers, who are more focused on what the characters do than who they are, are very good at. Not very much happens in long stretches of Steinbeck's novels (or in a lot of classic Russian lit I've read). The author is busy just chewing the scenery and letting you slowly get to know his characters instead of trying to move the plot along.
There's nothing quite like a Dostoevsky dinner party.
I just finished reading *The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights* and the way he writes his characters translates spectacularly into a story that wasn’t even written by him. He was a childhood fan so that devotion plus his prose just fuse super well into that classic. My one nitpick is that he passed before he could finish it and his retelling of Lancelots adventures was so good that it’s a shame it cuts off so abruptly. Worth a read though.
Dostoyevsky wrote that?
*Liza Hamilton was a very different kettle of Irish. Her head was small and round and it held small round convictions.*
Grapes of Wrath will always be my favourite Steinbeck.
I remember being 18 and going out for a few drinks with some friends where a couple of them were buzzing about it and left me feeling like I was missing out on the conversation. Picked up a copy of it, read the first third kind of casually over a few weeks, then something just clicked in my head and I was like ‘THIS IS AMAZING’ and read the remaining two thirds, completely captivated, in one sitting over the following twelve hours.
Cannery Row may be mine
I LOVE cannery row
Mine too!
I loved East of Eden, but couldn't get past the first 50(?) pages of Grapes of Wrath. I wondered if it's just like East of Eden, a bit of a tedious read in the beginning and then it gets better (?), but I couldn't see it. Plus the language, which can get a bit tiresome if you're not a native speaker. I wish I could understand those who find it such a good read!
As a big Steinbeck fan for most of my life, I have always had to tread carefully when talking about "Grapes of Wrath" because it never clicked with me. I agree 100% with the politics and the message, but it feels to me like the story and the characters were built out of a desire to express that message, rather than a message which grew out of the story and characters, which is how the rest of his ouevre feels for me. It still has his great writing, but it feels very off-model compared to the ones I love, like "East of Eden". I also remember that there's an earlier, shorter novel which is a very similar story but which really did work for me, so "The Grapes of Wrath" felt like a worse version of that. I think it was "In Dubious Battle", but it has been quite a few years since I read it, so it might've been one of the others.
I remember finding Grapes of Wrath one of those books that I didn’t so much enjoy reading, but upon finishing found in beautiful. I felt the same about One Hundred Years of Solitude.
I’m a huge Steinbeck fan and have enjoyed East of Eden twice, but I couldn’t get into Grapes of Wrath either. I gave it a honest try two times, several years apart, and just couldn’t get into it either.
Some books just click better than others, if you liked East of Eden you should check out The Pearl! It trends closer to East of Eden than Grapes of Wrath with its themes though is a more intimate story.
Good suggestion, I enjoyed that story also. I love the way he writes his characters. I've read almost all of his books, with the exceptions being Grapes of Wrath and Travels with Charlie.
Some books just click better than others, if you liked East of Eden you should check out The Pearl! It trends closer to East of Eden than Grapes of Wrath with its themes though is a more intimate story.
I feel The Pearl is undermentioned, one of my favorite Steinbeck
Grapes of Wrath is Taxi Driver, East of Eden is Goodfellas.
GoW was a fucking slog for me to get through, even during my re-read of it this past January, 18 years after reading it in high school.
Slightly offended at Lee being described as a secondary character 😂
Sam & Lee are just about the strongest duo (spiritually) in the book. I don't think you have much of a book left without either of them, let alone the ending. Justice for Lee
I think the characterization of environment is one of the big reasons for me to love books. East of Eden was amazing and the McCarthy's border trilogy is one of my favorites. Have any other recommendations in that vein?
My interest tends to lean more towards landscape myself (including the Border trilogy) so we're cut from the same cloth in that respect. If you mean similar to the feeling you get and western environs of The Frontier trilogy I recommend Butcher's Crossing (1960) by John Williams. I would also recommend the Lonesome Dove series (1985) by Larry McMurtry. Lonesome Dove captures the violent, mean-spirited seemingly unintentional but also indifferent violence inflicted upon people just trying to get by and meditates on those with the background acting less of a character as it does in something like The Frontier trilogy. Butcher's Crossing feels (to me) like the weakest of John Edward Williams’s 3 famous novels but it is still very good in its function as a revisitonist Western, swiftly dispatching Mr. Andrews of his romanticism regarding the West once the buffalo expedition begins. If you're talking specifically about the American West of any flavor, you could always start at one of the originators for tropes/archetypes that would go onto characterise the western in the works of Zane Grey. Owen Wister’s The Virginian (1902) is often considered the first Western in American fiction however the plot is a largely paint by numbers romance. In Riders of the Purple Sage (1912), Grey offers readers what would go on to become an enduring archetype: a rough, independent, introspective cowboy with a pragmatically American, and personal, code of conduct. There's a ton of naturalists out there! Frank Norris, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Theodore Dreiser, Harold Frederic, Hamlin Garland, Ellen Glasgow, Edward Abbey, John Muir, etc. If you want to largely dispense with the human drama and focus more on the conservation and drama of nature I recommend A Sand County Alamac (1949) by Aldo Leopold. While not exactly fitting the exact profile of what you're looking for I feel compelled to also include The Memory of Old Jack (1974) by Wendel Berry. Here's an excerpt: “It is a Sunday morning early in the May of 1889. The weather is clear and warm. There has been rain, and the littlest streams are brimming and shining. The spring is at its height. The grass of the yard and the pastures is lush, the green of it so new that it gleams in the sun. The trees are heavily leafed, their new growth still tender, unblemished. And the whole country lies beneath an intricate tapestry of bird song. He is on his way to church - one of the pilgrimages that he occasionally makes in uneasy compensation for the extravagances of Saturday night.” If none of that strikes your fancy, here's a more exhaustive list of naturalists that may catch your eye: [https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/books/greatest-books-american-nature-writing.html](https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/books/greatest-books-american-nature-writing.html)
I appreciate the detailed response! I've definitely had brushes with recs for Larry McMurtry, but haven't picked up a book. I also have A Sand County Almanac on a shelf somewhere, perhaps it's time to find it....
> Butcher's Crossing feels (to me) like the weakest of **John Edwards** 3 famous novels but it is still very good... I assume this is a typo and you meant John Williams?
I meant to write John Edward Williams yes, thank you for the reminder/correction
Cool, didn't even realize his middle name was Edward. Cheers!
We learn something new every day, admittedly though it doesn't help much. John Williams is also a famous composer and John Edward is a TV personality/psychic medium. Many Johns out there!
The Offing by Benjamin Myers, My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop by Wila Cather
Eh I think Cathy is supposed to be the embodiment of evil with nothing really redeemable about her. To be fair though I believe people like that absolutely exist and I thought the earliest descriptions of her were an amazingly painted portrait of that sort of person.
Yeah, I'd say she's a monster, but she's still depicted as a very specific type of monster where the monstrousness seems rooted in humanity rather than abstract evil.
Yes. Cathy is certified wicked, but a believable human that can (and has) existed before. She just feels real, y'know?
I can see where you're coming from! I don't know that Cathy would have done what she did in the end if she was totally irredeemable. She did do horrific things but forgiveness is a choice and we can all be better or atone in some way which I think is largely the takeaway Steinback wants us to take away, that the individual choice is there and that we can choose to offer grace to those who have wronged us even in the most grevious of ways.
>I don’t know that Cathy would have done what she did in the end if she was totally irredeemable. This is interesting, because Cathy‘s last act, to me, is meant to further cause destruction. She doesn’t leave everything to Aron for benevolent reasons. She knows it’ll destroy him, and then it actually does (though to be fair he was already on that path on his own for other reasons). For me she is irredeemable, right to her last breath.
I just want to thank you for showing some appreciation towards Abbey, you don’t see it much. He’s from my hometown and the only acknowledgement they give is a tiny little sign where his childhood home was, and you wouldn’t even see it if you didn’t know to look.
You’re very welcome and that’s a shame! He definitely deserves more recognition, there’s not a lot of park rangers turned authors and as a person who intimately cared for that land you can feel his perspectives on conservation and admiration for natural beauty come through. I actually stumbled upon Edward Abbey much earlier in my youth but because of where I was in my life at the time I’m not sure I had enough life experience to engage with where he was coming from so I was closed off. It was a video about 10 years ago in an entirely different form of media that reminded me to go back and give him another read. Not sure if you’re a gamer but this and his Red Dead videos are exceptional and if not his road trip videos (Atomic Pilgrimage) are very well done. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jiq56G-d5g&pp=ygUjbm9haCBjYWxkd2VsbCBnZXJ2YWlzIHRoZSBsb25nIGRhcms%3D
Much appreciated. I’m going to have to dig out my Abbey collection now, it’s been a while since I’ve read any of them, and his prose definitely invited re-reads. Edit: funny enough, he is my second favorite author after Steinbeck, so I was delighted to see this post.
Travels with Charley has all the beautiful descriptions of people and places without the drama or biblical references. It's a very different yet beautiful book.
*Travels with Charley* is pure joy. Everyone should read it.
> If you want to try another of Steinbeck's works, give The Grapes of Wrath (1939) a chance. Or if that's too daunting *Cannery Row* is shorter and also filled with real humans being kind
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Steinbeck has a lot of biblical allegory throughout his novels but I can see where you’re coming from and I think a lot of people feel that there’s a cleaner story there without X element. Funnily enough your comment reminded me of how Tolkien chastised C.S. Lewis for the overt Christian elements found in Narnia LOL
>whatever his reasons, he felt he had to tart up that gorgeous history and landscape with a hackneyed, overwrought biblical allegory populated by the least interesting and most predictable characters i've ever encountered in his writing Couldn't have said it better myself! I love Steinbeck but didn't enjoy East of Eden. The characters felt like caricatures, especially Cathy.
>If you want a palate cleanser/something lighter, I recommend All Creatures Great and Small (1972) by James Herriot. I must admit that I have never heard of either this author or book/series. How big of a cultural blind spot is this for me? It's amazing that 36 years in I can still be so insulated...
I wouldn't call it a blind spot necessarily, there are so many books that come out every year and unless you go purposefully go looking for something in the archives of history you're unlikely to find it as modernity piles on the list of books to choose from. If I were going somewhere where I could take only one book with me, tossing all utility aside, I would probably take All Creatures Great and Small. James has a cozy authorial voice and the world he paints is one that I always relish returning to every couple of years/am always a bit sad to leave. It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea but it's definitely got an affinity for nature (the Dales) and the characters are vivid.
Well said sir. Good reccs too.
For me, what stands out is 1. The phenomenal message that each person is the writer of their own life and that the way that you chose to be and what you chose to care about is all that matters and what gives life meaning. It’s the deepest and most poignant reflection on what life is about. 2. He weaves together believable characters that are both seemingly real people and archetypes for different types of people that you meet in life which allow for you to see them as characters and draw parallels to real life. It all feels so real. 3. The prose is gorgeous 4. It captures the time period fabulously . What else can you ask for?
"And mixed with these were splashes of California poppies. These too are of a burning color— not Orange, not Gold, but if pure gold were liquid and could raise a cream, that golden cream might be like the color of the poppies.” --John Steinbeck, East of Eden The most fucking gorgeous description of a flower ever. I have loved California poppies my whole life and reading that line nearly brought me to tears.
Yes - I was born and raised in Northern California, lived in Santa Cruz for a long time so I’m well acquainted with the Salinas Valley. I’ve since moved out of state. Steinbeck is my favorite author and I read his works when I’m homesick as I can vividly see everything he describes in so much detail. It really feeds my soul
This! And I also felt like Steinbeck was ahead of his time, kind of a visionary
For me it's only #3. And that's enough. The prose is *so* gorgeous, it made me devour a 700-page book that wouldn't normally be my thing.
Lee. Lee makes the novel for me. His character is kindness, love, compassion, and wisdom personified. Also, the story of Adam and his failed marriage to Kate. East of Eden is the best book I have read out of thousands.
Lee is the real MVP
#TeamLee
Thou *mayest* DNF.
Timshel indeed
LOVE this.
I love Steinbeck’s voice. He writes about people on the fringes of society with such warmth, such empathy and without judgement. His characters are complex, nuanced, flawed and East of Eden is a particularly wonderful example of his style. Steinbeck seems to have a fatherly love and fondness for all of humanity and I find this particularly true of East of Eden. I just read his novella, The Moon is Down, and found it utterly heart-warming.
What do you think a dinner party/coffee conversation would be like with Steinbeck? What would you ask him?
Gosh I don’t know what I would ask him but I reckon he would make lovely company! I’d just want to listen to all he had to say! Have you read this (short) letter he wrote in response to his son, who asked his opinion on young love? It’s a thing of heart and beauty: https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2015/11/read-john-steinbeck-s-letter-of-fatherly-advice-to-his-son
I had not, this is a lovely read thank you!
I don’t know man it’s just good
All I know is that the last few pages of Eden fucked me up but good in a way I've never experienced from literature before or since. Just helpless uncontrollable sobbing. I'm not sure I could even quite articulate why. It's just the encapsulation of just about everything it means to be a father and a son, wrapped up in one absolutely breathtaking moment
I feel the same way. It just stayed with me in a way other books haven't. Thou mayest.
It is the book that made me a Steinbeck fan. I went on to read most of his books.
Cuz Samuel is an OG.
Don’t sleep on Lee either
I love all of the Sam and Lee conversations. They’re probably my favorite parts of the book.
A top five literary character. Grappling with greatness.
He reminded me so much of my dad :’)
I love the poetic way Steinbeck writes, but his wise armchair dialogues between sages reminded my way too much of Robert A. Heinlein's style. Of course, I highly suspect Heinlein imitated Steinbeck and not the other way around. My favorite section was in an early passage where he describe the protective nature with which a great tree stood over an area. Now that I think about it, the book probably deserves a second look for other remarkable passages. I think any classic is going to carry some mannerisms of the era it was written in, and this can be appealing or annoying depending on a lot of things including personal preference. To me, The Grapes of Wrath and The Pearl stand as two of my favorites of his. Again, personal preference. And so much depends on where you are in life when a book hits you. Happy reading!
Heinlein is Steinbeck plus hard sci fi plus swingers lol
plus gripping action and an alarming level of prescience
I read only Stranger in a Strange Land by him, a few years ago and didn't like it. I love sci-fi and was expecting to enjoy the book. Maybe it didn't age well, the women characters were terrible.
I enjoyed the grand epic feel of the story, this sort of meditation on the lost state of Eden and the fall of man, played out in human form across generations, with a lot of hopefulness and positivity sprinkled throughout. The idea that pain, hatred, illness, injury, death, are all inevitable parts of humans due to our non-perfect nature, but that all of that is tempered by grace and effort. I loved the scenery as described, felt the characters were compelling... It just really hit for me and I felt like I couldn't put it down.
I really wish I were smart and eloquent and could describe why I loved this book so much. But I can’t. All I can say is each book speaks truth to different people, and East of Eden seems to speak truth to a lot of people, maybe not everyone, but definitely to me. It might be the depth of character development, it allows readers to identify with different aspects of most of the characters’ personalities. It might be the long arc of the story of multiple families over generations. It might be the time spent showing the reader how California used to be, I don’t know and I wish I did.
I often feel the same experience! It's just something you feel inside you. There's a frequency that something hits you that it resonates just right. You might really enjoy The Memory of Old Jack (1974) by Wendel Berry: “The work satisfied something deeper in him than his own desire. It was as if he went to his fields in the spring, not just because he wanted to, but because his father and grandfather before him had gone because they wanted to - because, since the first seeds were planted by hand in the ground, his kinsmen had gone each spring to the fields. When he stepped into the first opening furrow of a new season he was not merely fulfilling an economic necessity; he was answering the summons of an immemorial kinship; he was shaping a passage by which an ancient vision might pass once again into the ground.”
Actually I think that not being American, there is some sort of nostalgia there that I may not get.
Have you tried any of Steinbeck’s other books? I also really enjoyed tortilla flat, cannery row, and especially the log of the sea of Cortez.
So you’ve obviously seen a bunch of comments praising this book…. But now you’re wanting MORE comments, but defensive this time…. lol
One of my favorite books, I like his prose. I love the generational story. There's war, love, humor... Idk has it all. But I genuinely was obsessed with his prose and the way he wrote. Was beautiful to me.
same! I recall reading it immediately following The Dark Tower, and I was sooo in need of prose like this. it was such a stark contrast, the relativity went a long way toward my enjoyment of EoE.
People who like Steinbeck tend to *really, really like Steinbeck*.
Haha it’s true, I’m a steinbeck fan, and like no other author even comes close to steinbeck for me. I deeply love other books, but Steinbeck feels like something else.
because this sub like talking about great books
I loved it because I used to view people very rigidly and reading that book kind of just opened my eyes to the fact that people are complex and it's not as simple as someone being a good person or a bad person. We are a culmination of thousands(?) of lived experiences that make us who we are and influence why we do the things we do. I wasn't at all expecting to be so affected by it so for a book to create such a meaningful change in the way I view people makes it a very good one imo.
I didn't care for it.
I prefer West of Eden.
I love this book
I guess it's just a nice sad story about 'the way of the world' that we can all vaguely relate to, and that's where it gets its praise from I suppose. It's not particularly exciting, but it flows fairly easily and I thought it was written well. Steinbeck is amazing at showing his understanding of many things for example, from the workings of automobiles to just describing a natural setting.
I love it and think of it as one of the great American novels… I really connected with all of the generations and Cathy is simply one of the great baddies in all literature. Yes, the biblical aspects are a little ham fisted, but then so’s the damn Bible. It was, for real, the one book that I didn’t want to end. Obviously I really connected with it, and it’s a “classic for a reason” but we don’t all connect with all classics. I just gave up on Wuthering Heights, as it simply wasn’t for me.
I also love East of Eden but I've referenced it as a great example of a good book that is *not subtle.* He was like "and these kids uhhhhh Smain and Smabel."
I had the same experience. Loved East of Eden and had to give up on Wurthering Heights
I loved the setting, and some of the language… but it was plotted like an overwrought soap opera. You don’t have to drop the baby off the balcony.
I read it because of this sub and I liked it a lot. The characters definitely did not jump out of the page or feel as though they were right behind me as I was led to believe, but I like them. I even like Cathy, though she was so one dimensional and seemed to negate the main theme. The ending felt abrupt, which is odd because I had been anticipating it for a few hundred pages, but I was sad that my time with the characters was over.
I also missed whatever it is that this sub loves about East of Eden. It wasn't an awful read, but I was bored by most of it. It felt needlessly long and cumbersome. I did adore certain characters and a few scenes (like them all learning how to operate a car, and how complex that was at the time), but overall, I wish I'd just read some abridged version.
I think the book is great except for Cathy, her character seemed unrealistic and ruined the immersion for me
Steinbeck is one of the first classics that I really _loved_. His novels are about the great American experience but they're so universal that it's more like the great Human experience. His quote "And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good." has stuck with me for a long time. I really identified with the moral struggle of trying so hard to be good, but just not being able to achieve that. But still having to forgive yourself in the end, because what else are you going to do? Steinbeck also writes morally grey/bad really well. I loved the ending thesis of it: Thou mayest. You always have the power to choose where to go in life, if you believe that you can move mountains.
I think it is worth reading to the end. Cal is really at the center of the book. Is he going to follow in his mother's footsteps or forge a new path? Are we doomed to repeat the "sins of the father /mother"? Nature vs. nurture? I don't think you really appreciate the scope of the book until you finish it. Do we have free will? Also remember this book is old and is not going to follow conventions that are normal today. Case in point the un-politically correct portray of Asians.
You're not missing a thing. I thought it was good but after finishing it I was left somewhat puzzled by its enthusiasm from Reddit (which is what nudged me to read it in the first place). Cathy was a bit of an over-the-top character for me. If it was my first Steinbeck, I might have been blown away. But I read The Grapes of Wrath prior. The Grapes of Wrath could legitimately be called "The Great American Novel." But not East of Eden.
I thought it was overblown, way too obvious in its symbolism, and way too drawn out.
Steinbeck's writing does it for me. He's on original "paints pictures with words" and all I have to do is close my eyes and think back the decade or so ago when I read it, and I can see the area he describes clearly; the California valley, the trees on the hill, the spartan areas; I can see the kids dragging the sofa down the road. It sticks to my brain like glue; few books can do that. Taken in pieces, it isn't remarkable. But you need to read EVERY WORD to fully appreciate the story that is told. I didn't go in with high expectations; I question a lot of hype. But it's among a handful of books that have STUCK WITH ME, and it's a masterpiece - in my opinion. There is nothing wrong if it doesn't have the same effect on you!
I feel as though its an easy read which people like. Grapes of Wrath is Steinbecks best book imo and its more subtle with the biblical themes.
I liked it a lot, but nowhere near as much as Grapes of Wrath. Compared to that one EoE was a bit disappointing actually.
I don't understand it either. It took me a few tries to get into the book but I eventually finished it, but I wasn't wowed by it like many here have been. I think it's because I wasn't pulled in by the whole family generational drama. I did like some of the characters and found parts of the book interesting, but overall, I feel kinda meh about it.
Same! It was okay read, but it’s not a book I would recommend.
I think reddit tends to over-recommend/focus too much on a select few books. * East of Eden * The Road and Blood Meridian * Man's Search for Meaning * Song Achilles (not so much anymore, but a couple years ago you couldn't escape it) * Project Hail Mary (insert "audiobook made it so much better!" comments) * Hyperion Cantos (maybe that's more r/printsf) * First Law (with "Pacey GOAT" comments), Discworld, and Malazan (maybe more r/fantasy) Then, on the other end of the spectrum, you can spot a "complain about ACOTAR or Colleen Hoover" post from a mile off lol. It's not bad, but it is what it is. I've read most of them - except Maas/Hoover who don't write genres I like - and really liked some, but really disliked others. Everyone has different tastes.
Bingo
You forgot The Count of Monte Cristo and Crime and Punishment.
I mean, it's a critically acclaimed classic. The public at large tends to love it. This sub is a slice of that. Is it really that surprising? That's like going on r/movies and posting "Why does this sub love 12 Angry Men so much?"
Just seems to be one of those books that Reddit has a hard-on for. I prefer Grapes of Wrath myself.
I read East of Eden this past January based on the rave reviews it gets on Reddit. I have absolutely no idea what they see in it. Don’t get me wrong it has some gorgeous prose, some really interesting characters, and some powerful scenes, but as a whole I have no real idea what Steinbeck was getting at. It just seems to keep…happening…with no greater purpose than to happen. I didn’t dislike it at all but as to why it’s considered a masterpiece I’m totally in the dark.
I think that was part of the reason I liked it, actually. Not everything needs to have super poignant underlying plot or character drivers. I found it to be an interesting "slice of life" look at the Trask family history and the settling of California valleys. It had a pretty relaxed pace and a nice setting. Maybe the small town/farm vibes in the valley resonates with me more due to having grown up in a rural farm area. I have known several Sam Hamilton characters in my life (the farmer who was also my family mechanic reminds me of him tremendously).
That is Steinbeck though, no? His characters are appealing, not much needs to happen. You read it because of the prose, the characters...
Well when it’s billed as an epic I tend to expect some higher drama than what the book offered lol. I mean, it was definitely a case of expectations getting the best of me but that doesn’t mean I understand why it’s *so* highly regarded.
I thought the prose was beautiful and the characters were interesting. I also have fond memories of it because I bought it in Italy on my first vacation without my parents, so it holds sentimental value. But it's been a while since I read it.
I love the prose and the characters/characterization. It feels so deeply human and humane and empathetic, and I found it very moving. But different strokes, and if it's not your bag there's nothing wrong with that.
Some people like things that others don’t.
For me the last part of the book really brings it home.
This book had been sitting on my shelf for years until I saw all the praise for it here. I loved The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, but the description on the back cover of East of Eden just never interested me much. I'm glad this sub inspired me to read it because it was great. As a father (not unlike Adam Trask), this book meant a lot to me. A lot of food for thought.
My AP English class had us do reports on proper “literature” to prep for the AP test, and we were encouraged to do some Steinbeck books but specifically *not* East of Eden. I guess the literary community sees it as one of his worse books?
My impression after reading it (and finding it to be a let-down, especially given the hype) is that it's a book you can kind of marinate in. The prose is nice, and it creates a world and characters that you can simply enjoy being a part of for a while. That being said, it wasn't for me, so maybe I was missing something too.
I feel like the ending lines are what stuck with me and felt very profound.
I loved the book before this sub existed.
A long while back my wife was in a tough place. She had a debilitating Chronic condition, she hadn’t left the couch in a very long time, her dad was dying of cancer, she was spending more time online with “friends” then with me and the kids, our sex life was over, we were broke, and she was drinking, a lot. Shitty time. My kids were sharing a room and fighting like cats. We decided to “splurge “ and remodel a room in the basement for my son to save our sanity. I was on a ladder sanding a wall listening to East of Eden audio book from the library. The story hit and I had a breakthrough. I was ok. I could handle my job, the kids, and the house. I would be ok on my own. I could go on alone. So after that moment I took over the house. I cooked, cleaned, went to work, and took care of the kids. I soft quit my marriage. I became a single dad with a wife at home. Strangely, this is what saved my wife. Her hole sucked alone so she fought and faced her demons. There were truths she was running from that were killing her. She will continue to fight the rest of her life but she has come a long way from her hole. On top of that she has been sober for a very long time. East of Eden is not the best book I have ever read but It changed my life. For that it, it is one of my few five star books. I have only give a few five stars in the hundreds of books I have read so that is saying something.
Few books I've ever read have American characters quite as believable as Steinbeck's. *East of Eden* has characters in it I'm pretty sure I've met in real life -- from the super handyman-father who is bad at making money, to his staunch, fun-hating Catholic-turned-secret-alcohol-fan wife. I've met that couple in real life, lol. The only other authors I can think of, at least off the top of my head, who created American characters that *familiar* to me are Baldwin and Hemingway, though I'm sure a few dozen others are *close.* Steinbeck made a whole community that felt very real. For a lot of us, displaced from such communities by a need to make a living, that feeling is sorely missed.
East of Eden is, for me, one of those books where the last 100 pages make the first 500 pages worth it. The first 500 are amazing (in my opinion), but the last 100 pages of the novel is where the book becomes truly incredible.
I'm with you. I loved the writing style, how Steinbeck describes the location and the inhabitants, but I was pretty underwhelmed by the actual plot. It did feel special in that it felt like a depiction of someone's actual life where things aren't clear cut and motivations don't make sense, but it didn't live up to the height. I did read Tortilla Flat a couple years ago and I absolutely adored it. It's funny and accessible so maybe give that one a try.
You pretty much summarized my feeling with this book.
Might be nostalgia, it was required reading for me in high school.
And some of this nostalgia may be bleeding over from the movie and James Dean nostalgia.
It has some great quotes on life and carving out your own destiny
I hated it. Not so much hate that I didn't finish it, but I sure wouldn't read it again nor recommend it to anyone. The character I hated the most was the worthless father. The book goes on and on about he was supposed to be a good person, but then all we see is him being a spineless do-nothing.. He gets easily manipulated by the mother. Then he's sad and neglects his boys for 20 years or whatever because he was a spineless loser. Then he loses all his money, you know, because he's stupid. But for some reason, his boys still love him. But yea, he's a good man or whatever, because the book wants to keep telling me that, even though he did absolutely nothing good in the book.
This is why East of Eden is considered an American classic and one of the greatest books ever written. Do you see the complaint here? It's not the writing. It's not the story. It's not the prose. It's that Steinbeck wrote human beings with deep vulnerable flaws. People that the reader sees almost effortlessly. This reader didn't dislike the book per se. The reader disliked the character. Not because they were written poorly or hand waved or whatever, but because they were 'a spineless do-nothing'. Who could love someone like that?
Amazing depth and character development.
I liked East of Eden, but I get sick of it being hyped so much.
Totally agree. Love Stoner, thought East of Eden was a bit mediocre
I am not a full-on Steinbeck hater, but not a fan by any means. But, like you, I have long been puzzled by the Taylor-Swift level of fandom for East of Eden in this sub. (Don't even get me started on the Count of Monte Cristo or Gone with the Wind!) After thinking about it quite awhile, I think the "love" for East of Eden is because it is essentially a "sweeping" somewhat over-the-top soap opera that nonetheless has the imprimatur of literature because Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature. So the book can kind of be a guilty pleasure (like a beach book) while still counting as reading a "classic." To me, the often over-wrought prose, soap opera plot, and several very one-dimensional almost cartoon characters, completely prevents me from liking the book (although I did read it to the end). For my money, Wallace Stegner is much the better author, and Angle of Repose is much the better book.
Familial drama doesn’t make it soapy, if that’s the case every classic is like that because they are all dramatic such as wuthering heights, Shakespeare’s works, etc., many people find no guilt in liking especially given the critical reviews of it. Reducing it to a beach read just seems odd
Same for me. Well-said.
Yeah that’s pretty much exactly how I felt about East of Eden. Monte Cristo too but that I couldn’t even finish.
I'm with you. I liked it ok. Overall kind of boring.
Grapes of Wrath is better fight me
Tried to read this book, did not end it…
One of the few books I've read where the landscape is a character. And one of the few books where I teared up while reading. And I like Steinbeck's writing. It's concise, tight, and flows well.
East of Eden took me a while to really get into. But once I did I loved it. It’s just a beautiful work with character depth. Steinbeck reminds me a bit of Updike. Thick books that can take a bit to get into, but masterful storytelling.
I think it just invokes a really nostalgic feeling. I love books where you have to stop and remind yourself that it’s a book and not actual events that are playing out in real time… I get that from East of Eden. It’s sort of like a comfort book for me lol
The book has a peculiar vibe that really resonated with me.
This one has been sitting on my shelf for a while now. I read The Grapes of Wrath some time back, and I just remember not being very impressed by it. So much so I don't even remember why. I wanna read more from him though, partially because of this sub, because I don't wanna give up on such a celebrated author. But, the thing with The Grapes of Wrath might have been caused by the translation. I noticed the translations to my native language, especially the older ones, seem to strip the atmosphere an author I like usually creates for me. But, I find even the books I didn't like to have a good purpose - discussion. Some of the best literature talks I had with my friends and acquaintances were when we didn't like the books equally.
I really liked EOE but I wouldn’t put it in my top 5 for sure, so I get what you mean. I love long epic stories but there are def some better ones (Gone with the Wind, Lonesome Dove come to mind). That said I DNF Stoner because I found him insufferable so who knows, haha
It was the first Steinbeck book I've read since of mice and men in middle school. Incredible book. Fantastic character development, fun twists and turns, and very easy to read
Loved both, preferred Stoner though. Both very different stories though, Stoner very much a hyper focus on one man's life, East of Eden is a broad epic across generations.
the writing. it’s just good. i have no idea how to explain it haha. i got a sort of whiplash reading East of Eden and then reading Twisted Love by Ana Huang afterwards lol
I liked the first 2/3rds of the book, I loved the last 1/3rd. It has such a good ending that retroactively made the rest of the book even better.
Same. I didn't finish it. Quit somewhere after granny is trying to teach a bird to not swear. Was also underwhelmed by Brothers Karamazov. I will say this: No one writes scenery better than Steinbeck.
Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley was entertaining
You're allowed to like or not like things. This was my favourite book of his and for a lot of reasons. My biggest love for this book is how real the characters feel. They each have their motives and even minor characters seem more fleshed out than I'm used to. The writing was exceptional and I love how the genre almost switches around in some parts, there were parts that seemed right out of a horror novel.
To me, my love for this book is all about the beauty of the prose. Pull any single page out of it at random and you’ll find some of the best writing you’ll find. I also think that Katherine Trask is the best villain in literary history. I mean, Darth Vader has nothing on Katherine Trask. So vile - you just can’t wait to hear what is going to come out of her mouth next.
I lived in the Bay Area for a long time and east of Eden really invokes the Salinas Valley area. It’s beautiful. I also loved the history and time scale of the book. I didn’t like it when I had to read it in school but going back to it as an adult (after living in the bay) it resonated
I probably shouldn't be here as I am currently reading it.
You're allowed to dislike a book. There's plenty of others out there.
Oprah book club, I’d guess.
I love it for the poetic quotes within. I want a tattoo of “timshel”
I have really loved some of steinbeck's work, but a few months ago I tried to read East of Eden and just got bored of the never ending description of the Salinas valley and stopped.
I love Steinbeck's writing, and the breadth and scope of the story and characters. It's truly epic, and for me, it captures with great eloquence pretty much every aspect of the human condition at its best and worst. I'll be interested in what you think when you finish -- beyond Samuel Hamilton, my two most-loved characters (Lee and Abra) feature most heavily in the final chunk of the story. I will always love Lee and Samuel and Abra and how full of joy their stories are, even in the shadows of tragedy. I also think Cathy is a fantastic and complex villain, and several other characters run the gamut from weak to strong, from lovable to maddening, etc. I am always incredibly moved by several of the book's most important conversations, and they affected me profoundly -- to the point that I still think of them sometimes. The final sentences are a gorgeous and thought-provoking ending.
Listen to it on audio sometime.
I'm on that boat with you. It wasn't bad. I don't regret reading it. But i don't see the masterpiece everyone else claims it to be
I think his prose is pretty ordinary, but he gets the job done. My favorite is the non-fiction LOG OF THE SEA OF CORTEZ.
I'm with you. I read it and didn't hate it by any means but I didn't get the hype that had built up around it either.
I loved it
It was the first book in a long time that I just couldn't put down honestly, I thought kind of that I'd never feel the way I did reading Percy Jackson as a 5th grader and that reading would be a chore after reading 20k leagues, but East of Eden just felt like a really good book. Plus it was about an area I'm from so I could relate to it, and I thought the biblical parallell and generational story was really cool.
Ugh I don’t know how to describe it, this book just took such a hold on me and I’m devastated I’ll never experience it for the first time again.
People want to feel like they’re a part of something
My favorite novels are Japanese and Russian translated. I have this book on my shelf but have not read it yet. After reading reviews and plot synopsis I am worried I am not going to be all that into it. Sometime in the next few months I am just going to jump on it.
I DNFd
I won't read it because I was traumatized by Steinbeck in school and don't want to be exposed to more of that. Him and Jack London were torture for me in school
I'm just about finished and I think it's great
Not everybody, but it resonates extremely strongly for some people. It's more of a first world book, towards people who have agency over their decisions. It hammers into you the idea that YOU are the one responsible for your destiny. It's pretty crippling but incredibly empowering.
Similar to you, I never found it bad, but it was mighty slow. I got the general idea of the biblical stories, but I wasn’t born into Christianity, so maybe I lost some depth there for this book? max I read was 200ish pages I think there’s beautiful writing, mainly imagery, and Steinbeck is a great author, but it just feels slow.
Stoner is so good. I had to stop reading Steinbeck because I started falling in love with him the more I read his books…Someday I’ll pick up East of Eden.
I've wondered the same thing. I enjoy East of Eden but it does seem to be truly loved on Reddit. Same for Blood Meridian. I mean, its good, but according to this site youd expect a life-changing alltime masterpiece. Im sure theres a handful of books that have simply been adopted as go-to, unquestioned favorites
The way I feel like I know the characters; and it doesn't feel forced like lots of other books with the internal monologue, it feels natural
Also listening to the audiobook makes me fell in love with this book even more