I ended up loving this book so much more than I ever thought I would, if I'm going to be quite honest. I didn't like either of the other two Steinbeck books I've read (Of Mice and Men and The Pearl). This just felt so much more profound than those, with lessons of free will, family, good and evil, and even religion. If anyone is unaware, it is an allegory of Cain and Abel with a strong look at paternal-rejection and whether someone has a choice in who they turn out to be. Every character faces decisions between good and evil, even the one we're introduced as to be monstrous

though we later see that Cathy is, in fact, just as human as the rest of them, and perhaps, just a little damaged

.

I highly recommend giving this one a try. It's gigantic (602 pages to be precise) and we've been reading it for three months, but nonetheless, I think almost everything in there was important. The only reason I'm giving it four stars instead of five is that it got a little boring at points and I thought the themes were obvious enough that Steinbeck didn't need to blatantly state them, which he, unfortunately, did.

I also give it kudos for being sort of diverse?? At least for the times...one of the main characters is Chinese and he's literally one of my two favorite characters. He's the smartest of everyone in the entire book and his backstory is so tragic. And all of the female characters were really strong when it comes down to it. I highkey love Abra and would die for her at this point.

But my other favorite character was Cal. He faces the true fight between good and evil and the ending was left really open-ended for him. I hope my son grows up happy because he really doesn't deserve any of the crap thrown at him, but I also think that's the point. Life doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints, right?

ALSO, I just wanted to point out that I found it somewhat hilarious I read the last few pages before I should have and saw "Cal killed his brother" and assumed it was a repeat of the Cain and Abel thing from the beginning where Charles tried to kill Adam. But IT WASN'T. It was just Cal blaming himself for Aron's death and I just...it broke my heart. But it was sort of funny that I assumed Cal would turn into Cain like Charles did...and I think that was the point. He chose to be good when he could have taken that route, even if he really didn't think he was good. And he didn't mean anything bad by taking Aron to see their mom because Aron deserved to know. Ahh feels.

-Book Hugger

This review is not on my blog, but here's the link anyway http://www.bookhuggerreviews.com