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Book Review of The Road

The Road
The Road
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback
reviewed on


I was really, really excited to read this book and, honestly, was really, really disappointed by it in the end. The author never names his characters - they are simply "the man" and "the boy", a faceless father and his faceless son. They have no past, they have no future. A good idea, but only in theory (at least with this author's writing style). The fact that they could be just about anyone is interesting; however, it's really difficult to connect with these two characters when you know absolutely nothing about them. And their characters don't become any clearer, either. (I challenge anyone who read this book to name three solid traits for either character. I found it absolutely impossible.) There's a lot more I could say, but I'll just make one more important point. I was distracted all of the way through the story with questions about the disaster. There is no disaster, in my mind, that could have caused the situation described by McCarthy. And if there is one that I've missed, I wish he would have just come out with it. It's important. I hate being in a story where I spend the whole time trying to figure out the basics. And that's what The Road was all about. You end almost just where you start.