Did anyone else get to the last paragraph and think Steinbeck had to stop writing? Like he couldn't possibly bring himself to make anything worse happen to those poor people? If you are the kind of person who likes to read the last page to see if the book is worth reading, DON'T! This book IS worth reading, and you absolutely need the context of everything else that happens before the end in order to fully appreciate the horror of the migrant story. I found so many disturbing parallels between the way we speak about refugees now (economic migrants, anyone?) and how the "Okies" were treated. Are our memories so short? People are people. No one wins if one part of the population is suffering like that. I also happened to watch Interstellar while reading this book, and that also has quite fascinating parallels, especially the whole desperate "running away from the dustbowl" thing. Plus cool shots of space travel. It makes for a nice companion piece.