Sophia C. reviewed on 8/2/2012 + 289 more book reviews

I thought On the Road would be a great choice as my road trip book. I was partially right: if it weren't my sole reading material for several weeks, it's unlikely I would have finished this American classic which defined the Beat generation. Exhausted from my own travels, I found it required a lot of concentration to get through the stream-of-consciousness prose. Kerouac gets style points for making it still feel like Sal and Dean's adventures whirled past me. I could see how this story of several cross-country trips set in the late 1940s was a breath of fresh air in the conformist 1950s but the male bonding, with its wake of abandoned women and children, struck me as irresponsible rather than impressive. I am glad to check this off the list of 1001 books you must read before you die.

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