Book Blog #24, The Pearl

The Pearl                                                                                                                      by John Steinbeck
Kino has always been a pearl diver, just like his dad, and his grandfather. When his son Coyotito (yes, that is their actual child's name) was bit by a scorpion, he and Juana, his wife, don't have enough money for the doctor, and don't know when they will. After a shameful visit to the doctor that ended with being thrown out, Kino went back to dive for pearls, like he always had. This time, though, he doesn't find something quite so usual. He comes to the surface with a pearl the size of a seagull's egg, and as perfect as the moon. The pearl is worth fortunes, but good luck always has it's downsides.

This book was really good, even though it was really short, like 90 pages short. I liked that the plot remained strong throughout the entire book, and that I could always easily tell what was happening in the story. I think that the book could have been longer because there are spots that could use more details, and the characters could be more developed. The book switches settings a lot, but each one is quite detailed and I felt taken to each place. The one downside to it's location switching was that I wasn't always totally sure of the layout of each place in comparison to where the rest of the story took place. One of the other hard things about it was that I felt like the characters were all shallow as it didn't talk in great depth about each character, other than their most important relationships to other characters Overall, this was a good quick read that had an interesting story, but needed more details

WARNING!: There is a fair amount lot of violence and death that seemed unnecessary to the plot, and didn't improve the book. There are also a few confusing sections. One final point, this book is incredibly sexist, like extremely stereotypically sexist.

I would recommend this book to Gabe because I think he would like that the story is deep and a lot of it seems fairly abstract and surreal, so it is an interesting book to think about. I think he would enjoy that even though it is short there is a lot to it.
I would also recommend this to Lena because in parts it seems similar to Shakespearean writing in the way things are described, so I think she would enjoy it as she loves Shakespeare.
I would recommend it to anyone who wants a short philosophical book that they can ponder over for a while. I would also recommend this to anyone who wants to read a quirky book with a lot of plot twists.

TBR list
Unremembered          by Jessica Brody
Leap Day          by Wendy Mass
Escape          by Paul Dowsen
Locomotion          by Jacqueline Woodson
The House of Ivy and Sorrow          by Natalie Whipple