15.9k reviews for:

The Road

Cormac McCarthy

3.92 AVERAGE

dark emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
dark sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
dark emotional sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Well that was a fitting first book for my Covid 19 quarantine. Read this during the winter when it is cold and gray. I will be thinking about this one for awhile.
challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense

After trying to read McCarthy's other acclaimed book, Blood Meridian and failing, I decided to give a shot at his most famous book, The Road.

While I believe McCarthy is still difficult to read sometimes because of his lack of punctuation, I found The Road easier to digest, and simpler to follow, mostly likely because of there only being 2 different characters are most parts in the book.

The book was a great tale of two people, The Man and The Boy and their adventure down a road to survive. Nothing is mentioned on why everything is run down, where The Man and The Boy are from, or even where they're going aside from "South" to "meet the good guys."

The only thing that bothered me about this book was the conversations between The Man and The Boy:

The Boy: I'm scared
The Man: It'll be okay
The Boy: Okay
The Man: Okay

UGGGGGGGGGGGGGH.

Still a great book, 4/5.
challenging dark mysterious reflective sad fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I had heard a lot--and a lot of disturbing things--about this book, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. No, that's not true. I expected a grim, disturbing, desolate, make me want to kill myself sort of story. That wasn't what the story was at all.

Don't get me wrong--this *is* a grim tale with some disturbing elements to it (e.g., cannibalism). But it's poetically written (though I found some of the passages a bit inaccessible at times) and has a thin, golden thread of hope running through it.