East of Eden Is the Book Everyone Needs To Read This Summer
John Steinbeck’s East of Eden has been talked about everywhere this summer, and for good reason. With a Netflix mini-series coming this autumn and the novel all over everyone’s social media feeds, it’s felt hard to avoid the hype.
Certain books are catapulted into the limelight, and this one is a must-read. When I finally picked it up earlier this summer, it all felt worth it. In all honesty, East of Eden has become one of my most-loved books, and there are plenty of reasons it fully deserves its place among the greats.
What is it about?
On the surface, East of Eden is a metaphorical retelling of the story of Cain and Abel from the Bible, but it feels like a light way of unfolding a lengthy, multi-generational family saga. Taking place primarily in California’s Salinas Valley, the novel follows the Trask and Hamilton families across generations, exploring their trials and tribulations, their successes, and (more than enough) of their failures.
You’ll fall in love with this book if you’re a fan of descriptive literature (think gorgeous farmland stretching across the Salinas Valley). The real joy of the book, though, is the slow, intense pull into rooting for the characters and their future kin. It’s a novel that takes its time, and you spend it learning about multiple generations of the same families.
The real joy of the book is the slow, intense pull into rooting for the characters and their future kin. It’s a novel that takes its time, and you spend it learning about multiple generations of the same families.
Caitlin, Senior Campaign Success Manager
You back the ones you love and hate the ones you hate, yet you’re left with an internal struggle over truth. Do you hate certain characters because of how they’re framed in the narrative? Are you shocked by who you end up supporting? This is a book that has withstood the test of time, and one that perfectly captures what it means to be human, feeling relatable to everyone no matter how many generations pass.
Why you should read it
I picked up East of Eden because of a passage from the book I’d seen online that really struck me, though the length looked genuinely daunting. And yet I found myself stuck to it, unable to put it down.
Men want to be good and want to be loved… We have only one story. All novels, poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil.
To me, this is a near-perfect exploration of what humanity is, and every question that sits inside it. Nature versus nurture – is either even real? Are you more similar to the person you hate than you’d like to admit? What is evil, and what is inherited?
It’s the perfect tale of humanity and internal reflection. This is a book whose characters will stay with me forever, questioning my own sense of morality. It never feels preachy. Instead, it’s self-aware and honest in a way I’ve rarely read before. I finished it with the reminder that, at the end of the day, every choice is your own, and yours to carry. It’s a book that left me feeling encouraged and hopeful for my future and the world around me.
It never feels preachy. It feels self-aware and honest in a way I’ve rarely read before. I finished it with the reminder that, at the end of the day, every choice is your own, and every choice you make is ultimately yours to carry.
The Netflix adaptation
Netflix is adapting East of Eden into a miniseries, and I’m fairly sure I decided to read this book when I did due to very effective marketing. Still, I am more than excited about it. The cast is genuinely head-turning for our day and age: Florence Pugh (duh), Mike Faist (Challengers), and Christopher Abbott (Girls). It has the platform and the story to be the series of the year.
My question is whether the adaptation can capture the morality and human nature that make the book what it is, or whether that will get lost along the way. This is the type of book you need to read ahead of the show. Between the star-studded cast and Netflix’s promo machine, there will be plenty of opinions flying around by the time it airs. Rarely do I find myself thinking ‘fair enough, I need to read the book first’, but this is one of those times.
My question is whether the adaptation can capture the morality and human nature that make the book what it is, or whether that will get lost along the way. This is the type of book you need to read ahead of the show.
You don’t want the spoilers, or the urge to binge it, to get in the way of this masterpiece. This is a book that takes time to process, and one you should sit with both before and long after you finish it. The internal dialogue is central to understanding these characters, and I’m genuinely curious (and hopeful) to see whether the show can capture it. At its core, this book is about the question, “Why am I the way I am?” I can’t wait to see how they handle that on screen, but this is your sign to read the novel first.
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Our September pick
This September, we’re swapping fiction for gripping true crime with London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe, from the Baillie Gifford Prize-winning author of Empire of Pain and Say Nothing.
The book unravels the true story of a London teenager who fell to his death from a Thames-side luxury apartment in 2019, only for his grieving parents to discover he had been posing as the son of a Russian oligarch. Expect a page-turner that’s part family tragedy, part investigation into the murkier corners of London’s wealth and power.
