I think by the time you turn 15 you’ve heard about a million stories about how wealth and fortune and success also comes along with bad things like jealousy, violence, and arrogance. The book The Pearl by John Steinbeck is the perfect example of one of those stories: boring, predictable, and yet still has an impact on the people that read it.

The Pearl is a rather small book and the point is given to you quickly, and the plot is simple and easy to understand.

The Pearl is about a Young man named Kino who finds a pearl (obviously) and the effects that finding that pearl had on his and his wife and child’s life.

If you’re into things like When the Legends Die by Hal Borland or any other folky story like that then maybe this book will be a nice read, but if you find solace in more contemporary books then this is not the book for you.

Several parts of The Pearl book were completely predictable and yet there was still a slight sense of suspense. You could feel almost every move that was going to happen, but maybe this was the point. You knew what was going to happen, but you still went along this path driven by the promise of wealth. Even though the theme is a good lesson it has been heard and seen a million times through word of mouth, books, movies, songs etc. Nearly every popular rapper that has any depth has written a song around this theme or least murmured a line about it in one of their songs.

Not everyone is into that kind of thing though so if you’re looking for another way to get this lesson into your head in great detail, then by all means read The Pearl, because even though this theme of wealth and its consequences has been played through a thousand times it is still important and everyone needs to know it.