Rating: 
Summary: Searching for Better
Review: After losing their family farm in the red country of Oklahoma, the Joads must move to California to find their dreams and a better way of living. Together, they give support as well as life to their fellow neighbors who are experiencing the same difficulties of traveling to the west for a more satisfactory life. I thought this book was very well written by John Steinbeck because he brought out each character very distinctly. None of the characters were EXACTLY the same as another. I could almost imagine myself working together with the Joads, scraping around for food and water, trying to survive just for a better life. Steinbeck captured all the touching moments as well as the tough times that the Joads went through, and brought them altogether in the end. Another reason why I enjoy Steinbeck's books: Stated in the Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech of 1962 - "The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement."
Our imperfections that we often try to hide from the world is brought straight out to us in Steinbeck's books. He is not afraid to state the facts. But, even with those flaws we are working towards growth and development in our lives. I relate The Grapes of Wrath to Of Mice and Men because just like the Joads who are moving to improve their lifestyle, George and Lennie are doing the same on a smaller scale. They are all in search for their dreams and goals that they set for themselves. Furthermore, I do recommend The Grapes of Wrath if you want to experience the captivating characters and the hardships one family goes through to find happiness.
Rating: 
Summary: An American literature classic
Review: This is easily one of the best books that I have ever read. I was one of the few in my 12th grade english/history class that read the entire thing from cover to cover. It tells the story of the Joad family during the great depression and the dust bowl. They make their way from their desolate farm land in the mid-west to california to find work in the many orchards and farms. This is an american epic that no one should skip reading. The only one complaint that I and many other people have with the book is the last line or two. It does not ruin the book but really hurts it's quality.
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Summary: Only wealthy people should read this book
Review: I say that because this book will leave you despondent. If you're already poor, this book might not inspire you to succeed. It might make you feel like you can't.
The book is incredibly written and the intercalary chapters are informative and educational.
Everybody should read and learn from this book but be sure to read something inspiring when you're through to build you back up mentally.
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Summary: More Than Tom Joad
Review: Beyond the Depression-era stereotypes often presumed from Steinbeck's classic are the values stemming from the Everyman nature of Tom Joad's plight. What Tom Joad faced is what we face each day. Joad might be seen as just an Okie looking to make it another day beyond dust and grime. Instead, once the dust blows away, we have post-Depression Oklahoma, and WWII, and today. The struggle of Joad is not just his struggle in a hard time, but the same perseverence through adversity faced by Carl Sandburg's characters in his "Chicago Poems," in Dicken's "Bleak House" and in Billy Joel's song, "Allentown." Tough times are universal, no matter the environment. Complex situations wrought hard decisions by Joad and his family. In these contexts, things seemed complex and heart-breaking --- and they were -- but no less are our difficulties today. Hence, Steinbeck's book is transcendent of his time and culture, and worthy of reading today. Beautifully... deliciously written, "The Grapes of Wrath" will likely captivate you through each page. I fully recommend this book. Anthony Trendl
Rating:
Summary: Heartbreaking Depression Story
Review: This book brings one of the most inaccessible disasters of the 20th century, the Dust Bowl, into focus. What a mean coincidence that it had to happen when banks were going through tough times. This book, perhaps Steinbeck's best, brings the personal melodrama of Of Mice and Men on the road with a family of 14 Oklahomans. Meet the Joads, who have lived on the same land for many generations. They have killed for the land and have died for it. The bank has forclosed on the home loan, and they have been pushed out. Now they gather all they can carry with them, sell all they can't, and hit the road in a rickety car and with only about a hundred dollars and wild hopes. Grandma and Grampa are the stern, traditional voice of the family, Ma and Pa lead the family in their oddysey west, Uncle John is a booze hound with strength and grit, Noah is a strange individualist, Al is the testosterone filled young man, Tom is an ex-con who just happens to be the pragmatist and clearest thinker, Ruthie and Winfield are the wild kids, and Connie and Rose are newlyweds. I know I am forgetting someone. The book is divided into two parts: the journey to California and their heartbreaking quest to make a living. It just happens that they are members of an outcast society despised by everyone. Throughout the book they are run out of settlements, antagonized and harassed, and mistreated. A member of the oddysey is Jim Casy, a former preacher. Casy turns himself in for beating a deputy to keep Tom from getting turned in and in prison meets a man who wants to end the victimization of migrant workers. He wants to form unions. While protesting against a peach orchard (that the Joads just happen to be at) he is killed by corrupt deputies. The book is shattering in so many ways: the way the Joads are treated, how the migrants at large are treated by the cops and by the rich malevolents, and how the general people allowed themselves to be blinded by bitterness and hate. There are several deeply affecting passages: one where a bunch of oranges are dumped in a vacant area behind a Hooverville (where 'Okies' lived), then kerosene was dumped on them so that the impoverished Okies couldn't eat them; the part in which the deputies send in a starving guy to start a fight in a government camp so they can break it up (because the government camp is treating Okies like humans), one man owning a million acres and not even farming it, just owning it so he can say he owns it. These concepts of gluttony and cruelty are more than the poor migrants can take. I absolutely loved the book and think every person should read it: it shows what happens when ordinary people are hated, and how devastating and frivilous that hate can be.
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Summary: One of the greatest novels ever
Review: This book was quite simply one of the most powerful novels ever. Any serious reader will be moved, inspired and humbled by Steinbeck's emotional, rythmic masterpiece.
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Summary: 20th Century classic indeed
Review: The first John Steinbeck book i read, but absolutely not the last. The authors vivid descriptive language draws one into the world as it looked like in USA at the time. Being non-american it really helped me understand a lot of the time being - and in addition to the history-lessons ;) I also felt that i had spend a great time with a great book. Certainly a 20th century classic. I love it. Now you go read it.
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Summary: Plight of Migrant Farm Workers Is Focus of American Epic
Review: I admit to approaching the reading of "The Grapes of Wrath" with some preconceived negative notions. Having it be a "required" read was also not encouraging. However, about 100 pages into the story, I became captivated by the Joad family---particularly Tom, a man of great moral integrity, and the strong-willed but loving Ma Joad who provides the family's source of strength and courage in the face of overwhelming adversity. While some parts may make you flinch in horror, others will make you sad to realize these events really happened in the land of plenty. "The Grapes of Wrath" is an engrossing tale of one Oklahoma family seeking not their fame and fortune, but just the hope of putting a few scraps of food on the table. Join them in their clunker of a truck as all 12 of them pile in to make the long and arduous drive west to California in the hopes of finding work picking fruit. They lose family members along the way, some by death and some by choice, but they learn a lot about friendship and taking care of not only their loved ones but also the strangers who find themselves in the same dire straits as the Joads are in. Steinbeck's descriptions of the hunger, the hardship, the futile search for work, the disappointments, the hostile environment the migrants faced in California, all make for an eye-opening read. This is a great source of information on how it was for one group of people during the Depression. It may not be one of the great novels of the twentieth century, its characters are often overly-sentimental, and its theme is relatively simple, but it is a landmark of literature for the way it portrays the Depression in the western United States. This book has been proven to be an accurate portrayal of the victims of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl. Steinbeck alternates plot-driven chapters that feature the story of the Joads with chapters that focus on the large-scale problems of the economic history of California and the psychology of groups of migrants and of the landowners. These large-scale chapters provide background information and a broad world view that gives weight to the Joads' struggle, while the story of the Joads gives the large-scale chapters a sympathetic human face. Whether you love or hate the book, you will probably never forget this story of one family's valiant fight to survive while the world around them collapses and disintegrates. The novel was made into an excellent film in 1940 which starred a very young Henry Fonda as Tom Joad.
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Summary: an intimate read, and rich in everything that is human
Review: This is an utterly poignant tale - a reading experience that rends the human spirit. My week-long journey with The Grapes of Wrath is an intimate one because it has the expressions of passions whether tragic or bitter that have been beautifully written, an ingenious verisimilitude that is as close as a personal story. Although this intimacy is only but a woof of the awesome fabric, the warp is its universal allure; its actions - alive, soulful, depressing and frank that appeal to any man and woman regardless of experience and race. The Grapes of Wrath reflects the hellish downpour of misery upon the farmers who lived and loved their land as much as their life but whose farms have been encroached by capitalists whose only concern is profit and wealth at the expense of the abuse of the farmers and their family. This is a great tragedy, an allegory, by which an enduring family travels through life's travails. The story revolves around their sensibilities of hope and survival, that in spite of the foreboding, they are dauntless in their seek for a better life. The Joads mirror the plight of the migrant workers- depicting the same suffering, the same fear and the same hope. And all the misanthropies that happened have its bitter toll on them, nevertheless under the frosting of modernity, within the fillings of promises of abundance by science and economics and above little dashes of fraud and selfishness. And all these infuriated the migrant workers but whose voice are stifled under the narcotics of hunger. The whole story runs toward a single-paced arrow but the characters bounce back a certain tense, or perhaps a curiosity. They play transparent roles in a way that a reader is carried along some of their introspections. In particular, Tom who is the main character is given a trenchant role in the movements and resolutions of the story while their mother who is such an audacious persona embraces the moral force so that the other characters maintain their moral substance. The other interesting character is the defunct preacher, Casy who constantly denies his capacity to preach again, and who eventually becomes a martyr for the cause of the Joad family and for the migrant workers which he led during the labor strike. The rest of the family and the other fleeting characters also played brilliant roles - either in rich metaphors or as colorful realism. Along the precarious highway 66, their life-story evolved and adapted as they settled in from camp to camp. It is depicted as free as flying dust, as treacherous as the desert at the roadsides and as promising as the land of the west. It is at this highway that Steinbeck rolls most of his radiant poetic flair. John Steinbeck has smoothly used paradox in his materials, he has proved a master in dialogues and his metaphors and symbolisms elegantly put flesh between the story lines.
Rating:
Summary: Best book I have ever read
Review: I am reading this book for school and it is the only book I have ever read for school that didnt bore me to death. I found that I couldn't put this book down until I found out what happened next. Since this book is over 600 pages I thought I would finish it in a month or two....but I finished this one in less than a week!! Thats how good it was. Unfortunatly I had skimmed the cliffs notes before I read the story so I knew all the big events that were gonna happen so it wasn't a big surprise to me about the baby and about Casey and other events. But even already knowing that information I still found every chapter in this book very interesting to read. I strongly urged those of you who are reading this for school...dont just assume it is boring just because it is from school.
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