This book was actually a shocker to me. With all the references in the beginning to McTeague's stupidity, his ignorantly bliss outlook, I didn't imagine that he would end up the way he did. For that matter, I didn't foresee Trina's transformation into a money hoarder either. The first half of the book had me thinking that it would turn out to be an elaborate love story. There were clues against this early on in the book, but it was hard to take them seriously. After McTeague lost his job and Trina began her serious hoarding, that theme became clear to me. Even though I knew what to expect from then on, in terms of the money conflicts, I found myself getting angry at Trina's character. All she could say was how poor they were, when she had more than enough money to live off of stashed away, constantly trying to add to it. When she became so obsessed, I drew the parallel between her and Zerkow and figured she'd die, but not at the hands of McTeague.
The theme of a person spending his/her entire life collecting things, money for example, only to never see them put to use is something I can identify with. Never being wealthy, it was always easy for me to question rich people's lack of generosity and/or willingness to spend their money.
All in all, this book was enjoyable to me, even when after reading the first fifty pages or so, I was dreading having to read the whole thing. The themes and reality of the situations kept me interested.
