East of Eden by John Steinbeck is a timeless novel that explores the complexities of human nature, the struggle between good and evil, and the power of choice. The story traces two families: Hamiltons and Trasks. You get two generations of these families talking about re-enacting the biblical story of Cain and Abel throughout the generations.
So it’s a fascinating look into the characters’ lives and how they interact. But it’s also written in an incredibly gripping way. It’s hard to put down once you’ve started it. It begins slowly because you get an extensive description of most of the book’s setting.
You’re hooked once the author gets into the characters because every character is distinct. He allows us to look into their minds, which is fantastic. The book is written from a limited third-person perspective. So theoretically, there’s a narrator, but you do end up in the minds of many characters, which would mean that the book was written more third-person omniscient.
Books like East of Eden provide rich psychological portraits with multi-layered personalities, motives, and internal struggles. By reading them, you can gain insight into the human condition, empathy for diverse perspectives, and a deeper understanding of the complexities of human relationships.
5 Books Like East Of Eden (American Literature)
In the book East Of Eden, the struggle of many characters shows how to deal with not being their father’s favorite. This book is a fascinating study of how you need to learn how to deal with that, and it can’t necessarily be solved besides the characters themselves. It is the interpersonal relationships between all the characters and how they interact. Now I’m going to discuss five books similar to East Of Eden. Let’s go!
1. Of Mice and Men
Of Mice and Men is a classic novella set during the Great Depression. The book explores friendship, dreams, loneliness, and the harsh realities faced by migrant workers in rural America. This book is mostly about two men, George and Lennie.
George is the smaller one out of the two. He’s very clever, and he has his plans ready. Lennie is huge but also has a very childlike mind, so it seems he’s a four-year-old. He has a lot of trouble remembering things, even tiny ones. George takes care of Lennie and tries to keep him out of trouble.
When the book starts, they’re on their way to arrange where they will work and hope they can stay out of trouble. Lennie has a dead mouse in his jacket pocket that he keeps stroking. It’s small and innocent, but it immediately makes you realize how Lennie thinks and sees the world.
Everything was very vivid in the book, like East Of Eden. You can feel how tragic this book is and see what will happen, but you keep hoping that it won’t. This book is so full of hope and full of sadness. At the same time, you have these guys with their American dream of getting a little cottage and then living there and being happy.
Author: John Steinbeck
Average Rating: 4.7/5
Category: Classic American Literature
Available: Audiobook | Hardcover | Kindle | Mass Market Paperback
2. The House on Mango Street
The House on Mango Street is a novel of vignettes about a young Mexican-American girl named Esperanza living in Chicago. She lives in a barrio as many Spanish-speaking people live together in the house on Mango Street. It’s not a particularly great place. It’s one of the reasons why Esperanza is desperate for a home different than the house on Mango Street. It’s somewhere in between poetry and prose, which is interesting.
The novel’s tone is conversational, as if she’s talking directly to you. But if you dig deeper, there’s much more there, especially if you’re into poetry. You will find more in this book than what is on the surface. Gloria Jones will do like Sandra Cisneros, speaks a lot about the difficulties that people living between two cultures deal with. That comes up a lot in this book, especially in Borderlands by Gloria and Zelda.
This also talks about abuse and the highly patriarchal society of growing up dependent on your father. The historical and cultural aspects are very similar to East Of Eden.
Author: Sandra Cisneros
Average Rating: 4.5/5
Category: Hispanic American Literature & Fiction
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
3. The Crucible
The Crucible follows a small Christian community. They’re very strict Christians, and it’s a small town of people who all believe that one girl has been affected by the devil. Now they don’t know how the devil has affected her. They’re saying she’s been contacted by the devil so possessed, and then they must work out what to do. So around this time, if you were found to be a witch, it was a crime, and you would be hung. It’s an incredibly shouty play by that, and sometimes you can’t understand what people are saying.
No one wanted to be branded a witch or anyone in their family to be a witch. They were shouting and didn’t know any of the correct information. There are such beautiful parts when Eddie talks about himself, the people around him, and what he thinks now, looking back on his life.
What happened is the women were suffering from shock, and they couldn’t articulate the things that they wanted to say. This book is essential because it doesn’t make light of anything. It shows it to you plain and bare like East Of Eden.
Author: Arthur Miller
Average Rating: 4.5/5
Category: American Dramas & Plays, Classic American Literature (Best Seller)
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle
4. Something Wicked This Way Comes
Something Wicked This Way Comes is a story in the sixties. The story itself is a week before Halloween. The Carnival comes into this town and is sinister and spooky. There are the teen boys, and they are best friends. They can tell that something’s off about this carnival. Also, the boys bring it upon themselves to save their town from the wickedness of this carnival.
To save the town from what the Carnival is trying to do to the people. That’s the setup of the story exciting and fun. But the story is so much more than surface-level what you would think.
There’s so much going on underneath that you’re paying attention to, depending on the age you read this book. This book plays on is fear of the unknown fear of aging. It talks a lot about what it means to be younger and, coming of age, friendship, what happens when you get older as a kid, and maybe you lose contact with some people. That’s life.
We have one of our characters. His name is Charles, the father, and he is an older parent. He didn’t have his child till he was around four, around his 40s. So the book discusses reflecting on aging and the fear of many different things similar to East Of Eden.
Author: Ray Bradbury
Average Rating: 4.5/5
Category: Contemporary American Literature & Fiction
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Mass Market Paperback
5. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a powerful exploration of institutionalization, rebellion, and the nature of sanity. Like East Of Eden, this is a classic novel turned into a classic film. It gives you much insight into how mental health can sometimes be perceived, especially in the nineteen sixties.
The story is about a guy (McMurphy) in jail instead of working out his sentence in the work camp. He decides to fake insanity to be sent to an insane asylum. McMurphy wants freedom in the ward, which doesn’t sit well with Nurse Ratched. Then McMurphy also learns that some other patients with him aren’t committed.
They could leave if they wanted to, which is also strange to him. It shows that even though he’s forced to be there, other patients who choose to be there built their prison around them. Some people are essentially imprisoned by society, and others are voluntarily imprisoned by society.
So McMurphy shakes up the whole system like he is very different from all other men. They think they must follow Nurse Ratched’s every command and don’t have to question anything when the doctors and the staff give surface-level patients medication. They don’t know but do it because they follow the system.
The book is told through McMurphy’sperspective, and in the film, it’s not told through anyone’s perspective. So you get to know more about the chief earlier in the book than in the movie.
Author: Ken Kesey
Average Rating: 4.7/5
Category: Classic American Fiction, Literary Fiction
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle
These books offer the opportunity to engage with deep character studies, immersive settings, and the literary legacy of influential works. Expanding your knowledge and cultural awareness, you can explore different cultures, historical periods, or geographical landscapes.
More Literature Fiction Books:
American Literature Books Like East Of Eden
Japanese Literature Books Like No Longer Human
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