The Road is about a father and son who try to survive against all odds in a world that is decaying. They travel the road looking for food and steering clear of other people, some of which are cannibals. The former US is covered in ash, there is no sun, and it is always cold. The father and son spend a good deal of time searching for food in abandoned houses, most of which have been ransacked long ago. The only thing that keeps them going is the love for each other and the hope that if they keep traveling south on the road, they will find food and other good people.

Literature buffs. I don't recommend this book to people who only like to read light happy fiction, but if you aren't afraid to delve into some serious stuff, go for it!

This book is incredibly atmospheric. By the time I was a quarter of the way into it, I got a chill every time I picked up the book. McCarthy brings a cold lifeless world right into your home. It's a little unnerving but makes for an unforgettable reading experience. The other nice thing about this book is how quickly it moves.

I was kind of disappointed that the book didn't go into why or how the world was destroyed. Granted, this isn't really the point of the book, but it would have been interesting to hear the author's theories on it. The book can be pretty graphic at times. There are a couple scenes in particular that were so stomach-churning I put the book down for a while. These scenes are an integral part of the story, but they still left me a little sickened.

It's not a happy book, so I felt mentally exhausted by the end of it. Some books are just like that.

I had heard of Cormac McCarthy because of his book All the Pretty Horses, but the reviews for this book suggest that it is both different and better than his previous work. This book just won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

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Created Apr 22, 2007 at 4:37pm • Submit your own review...