John Steinbeck - The Moon Is Down

Pros: A masterpiece in just 112 short pages. So much impact.
Cons: Nearly 60 years later, I would not have understood the full impact without the introduction.

This is the first write-off I have participated in and I am pretty excited. You will find a list of all the other participants in this write-off at the end of this review, please make sure to go and read and rate their reviews as well.

When...

Pros: Breathtaking
Cons: You'll want it to last longer.

I have an admission to make. I adore Steinbeck. Don't let this throw you if you are one of the huddled masses who suffered through The Grapes of Wrath in high school like me. That one, considered his greatest work, I found tedious at best. But his...

Pros: Read it sometime when you're feeling cynical about humanity.
Cons: Not a one

Yes, Virginia, "The Moon Is Down" was a work of propaganda written by Steinbeck and distributed to Nazi-occupied Europe as moral support for the conquered peoples. And so what? Some of the finer works of literature are propaganda pieces. There...

Pros: Political Purpose, Light Reading, The title comes from Shakespeare
Cons: Underdeveloped characters, lackluster pace, over-the-top descriptions, and more.

John Steinbeck's The Moon is Down has to be one of the most disappointing books I ever read. This past year, my sophomore year in my English class, we started reading it. After somewhat liking Of Mice and Men, I expected a Nazi-invasion novella to steal ...

Pros: finely written overlooked masterpiece
Cons: none

This was written as a propaganda piece in 1942 and smuggled into occupied Europe where it was then translated into several languages and produced and distributed under a very real threat of death. Set in a fictitious country (sort of Norway, kind of like...