Thursday, July 5, 2007

The Road

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Finished July 4th, 2007

Rating: 9/10

Dystopian Challenge Book #3

Book Awards Reading Challenge Book #1



I wasn't sure what to expect from this book as I have heard you either love it or hate it. It was hard for me to get into this book at the beginning however after about 75 pages into the book it was hard for me to put it down.

The book describes the journey of a Father and Son through postapocalyptic America and is bleak and haunting.

I was very curious about what happened to make America this way and whether it was restricted to the US or whether it happened to the whole world? You never do find out what happened and perhaps that is the point. I also found it interesting that the characters were not given names.

After finishing the book I was a little disappointed about certain aspects about the book such as the ending and no real plot however I now realize that these are the things that made the book. It was more about the journey rather than the destination and not about finding out how certain things came to be but about how the Father and Son dealt with them.

It is a book that lingers with you after you have finished reading it.

5 comments:

1morechapter said...

This one lingered with me as well.

Trish @ Love, Laughter, Insanity said...

I haven't read this one yet, but your review sounds a little like The Crossing (also by McCarthy). The book was more about the journey than the actual destination, which was a little hard to swallow at the end, but I liked the book nonetheless. I'll still be reading this one sometime this year. I've come to a little bit of a traffic jam with my books and challenges, so I'm not sure where to go next. :) So I'm re-reading Harry Potter. ha ha!

Joy said...

This lingered for a long time with me. I didn't really like that either because it was a gloomy lingering. It was hard to shake off.

Pamela (aka Paiges) said...

3M and Joy - I guess the fact that it lingers with the reader proves that it is one powerful book. I decided to read something a little easier after this and picked a mystery to lighten things up a bit.

Trish - This was my first read of McCarthy. I will have to try some more of his books.

Wendy said...

Thanks for your review on this one, Pamela! I too found this book stayed with me - bleak and haunting is a good way to describe it. And you are right - it is about the journey and how a father and son make that journey together.