I wanted to read John Steinbeck’s East of Eden because it is my favorite James Dean movie – and it is also a classic and on the Top 100 books to read by Amazon. I rarely read anything but memoirs, biographies and histories – I am definitely a non-fiction girl. But I do want to read the classics, or at least try to. I just learned that the movie East of Eden was only based on the final fourth of the book, so I was anxious to see what happened before the movie started. Well a LOT happened, too much for me actually – or maybe I just prefer memoirs and histories.

The book East of Eden varied from the movie East of Eden. The father, Adam, was very religious in the movie, but not in the book. Cal’s character in the book was dark featured, certainly unlike James Dean. There was no Lee character in the movie. Aron never went off to college in the movie. My biggest disappointment was I never really saw the development of Abra and Cal’s relationship in the book like I did in the movie. My biggest shocker was Kate, the mother, died in the book, but she didn’t in the movie. I understand books and movies are rarely the same, but I was disappointed these were so very different. It was interesting to get the back story on everyone before the movie started, so I am glad I read it – mission accomplished.