liv ❁'s Reviews > East of Eden

A fun fact about me is that I love this book so much that I named my first born cat after one of the characters (Abra). But I read it in stressful college times pre-adhd meds so I remember very little now. Probably going to reread within the next year or two?


I've been thinking about this book a lot, and think I needed to digest it a little before I could fully review it, and - as the book is mainly character driven, this review will primarily focus on the characters and their development.
This book was very very interesting to me specifically on how the characters developed, and it genuinely felt as though Steinback was saying that you had to have a little bit of evil in you in order to be good - otherwise you would just be ignorant.
In the cases of Adam and Aaron, I continually wanted to scream at the top of my lungs at how they treated the women in my life. I do genuinely understand that Cathy was severely flawed (like monstrous), but I felt as though she had major points when it came to Adam. This man literally was so deluded that he imagined her as the most perfect human in the world - and as a dainty woman - and couldn't see how strong, manipulative, and calculating she was. In a sense, it was almost as if Cathy had to be who she was because no one would take her seriously because of her beauty. In Aaron's case, he basically did the exact same thing with Abra. Abra is an extraordinary girl and has many talents and he doesn't consult her on anything, while she follows him around lovingly. In reality, while Charles and Cal were both flawed character - like humans, not like monsters - they were genuinely good and fought with human urges to be as good as they could be.
Cal was definitely a favorite character, and broke my heart. I could not believe Adam's treatment towards him, as literally no one deserves that, and cannot imagine how it would feel to be so blatantly obviously the least favorite child that your dad is disappointed in you when you work so long to give him money, while the son he loves most is ashamed of his father and where he comes from.
I love how this book the centers around the plot of Adam and Eve and then of Cain and Abel (twice) and generally just the fall of man and brings it into a more human light, showing the humanity and love of Cain and the cruelty and absolute selfish ignorance of the father and Abel. Like seriously, Aaron was such a selfish child that he ran off and joined the war once he found out who his mother was - like bro, just because something doesn't go your way doesn't mean you have to do something like that.
This book explored the relationship between good and evil in a way that showed that you could not have one without the other - and you cannot be good, truly good, without the depth that overcoming evil, human, urges gives you, even if you do make mistakes sometimes.