A searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece.
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.
The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

My rating:  2.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I read this book for the Terryville Library’s Fiction Lover’s Book Discussion group discussion for this month (January). This book is about a man and his son, who are traveling after some sort of apocalypse in the US. They are trying to make it to the shore, from what I cal tell because its so cold everywhere and they’re trying to get south to somewhere warmer. There is a lot of danger on the open road, like people trying to kill and eat you, lack of food, lack of clean water, and the never-ending cold. The man and his son face many obstacles, at a number of times even death, but the most important thing is that they have each other. But the father is sick and his end is drawing near. Will he be able to find a way for his boy to stay safe even after he’s gone?
Overall I have to admit I didn’t like this book that much. To be honest I had a lot more questions than answers with the plot line and that tends to bother me. There were so many things left to the reader’s imagination, which may appeal to some readers but does not appeal to me. And the book was just so sad. The lives of the characters were so tragic and everything felt so hopeless. And I didn’t like how open the ending was. It just felt so random what happened in the last couple pages and I didn’t understand exactly how it came about. The book was interesting and was even a little thrilling with the danger of it, it just wasn’t my type of read.

The bottom line: I didn’t care for this one. I had so many questions even when the book was over. It was an interesting read just not for me. I would recommend to those who like post-apocalyptic fiction.

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