East of Eden
Cut along the dashed lines and pass the cards around the table.
Where did you do most of your reading of this one, and did 613 pages feel like a commitment or a comfort?
Steinbeck opens by describing the Salinas Valley like a person he knew. What place from your own life would you describe that way?
This book is full of people trying to be good at loving each other and mostly fumbling it. Which fumbling attempt at love felt most tender to you?
Lee is the character readers tend to want to sit down to dinner with. Who in this book would you most want to cook for, and what would you make them?
The novel keeps asking whether we are stuck with what we inherit. Did reading it make you feel lighter or heavier about your own family patterns?
There is a lot of farming, failing, and starting over here. Was there a moment where someone's stubborn hopefulness genuinely moved you, even when you could see it would not work?
Steinbeck lets his narrator step in and talk directly about good and evil. Did that voice feel like a warm hand on your shoulder, or like someone interrupting your story?
Without saying how things land for anyone: by the time you closed the book, did you believe its argument about choice, or did you want to argue back with it?