The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Cover via Goodreads.

Rating: 4/5 stars.

“‘How can you tell?’ Uncle John demanded. ‘What’s to keep ever’thing from stoppin’; all the folks from jus’ gittin’ tired an’ layin’ down?’

‘Hard to say,’ she said. ‘Ever’thing we do – seems to me is aimed right at goin’ on. Seems that way to me. Even gettin’ hungry – even bein’ sick; some die, but the rest is tougher. Jus’ try to live the day, jus’ the day.'”

Through his telling of the Okies’ struggle to survive the Dust Bowl, John Steinbeck temporarily made me a misanthrope. While I was reading the book I once annotated “why must mankind suck so much”. The Grapes of Wrath, for some, may not be an easy book to stomach due to the horrific hardships the Joads had to handle – not only from their environment and their ill-fortune, but also because of the cruelty of their fellow man.