The Road by Cormac McCarthy

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I can see readers having a love/hate relationship with this book. And I didn’t love it.

You know how there are certain movie reviewers that when they say they love a film you just know you’re going to hate it and vice versa? ‘The Road’ won a Pulitzer Prize. I should’ve known right away I wasn’t going to like it.

The whole stream of consciousness narrative plus the lack of chapters (and contractions, quotations, pretty much any grammar rules except for periods) made this book a drudgery to read. I've seen reviews where readers take an entire star away for just a few grammar errors, yet this book somehow gets away with celebrating them.
I did find myself identifying with the characters as I read, no up or downs, just slogging on through a desolate narrative, not really wanting to go on but doing it out of obligation.

When I read Lord of the Rings, Tolkien did an amazing job of making me feel the loneliness, the desolation, the hunger, the thirst, the fear of the impossible journey that Frodo and Sam undertook. Mr. McCarthy didn’t make me feel any of that. Reading it felt like the weather he described, nothing but endless grey.

One of the reasons I pushed my way through this book is because I live a short drive away from one of the places where they filmed the movie. And I wanted to read the book before I watched the movie. At this point, I’m not sure why I bothered.

The author did a good job of setting descriptive scenes in some cases, but that was about it.
This is one of those books that I’m not sure how it got published let alone a Pulitzer.

I would not recommend this book to anyone. It was like watching an ungodly long episode of The Walking Dead with all the interesting parts taken out.




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