Book Review: The Road

Ever since I finally gave into my age and got my hands on some reading glasses I have seriously gotten back into reading. In the past it would take me weeks or month (or longer) to finish a book but these days I am tearing through around 1 book a week, sometimes more. In this particular case I finished this absolute gem of a book in just a few days. It is extremely rare that I enjoy a book so much that I can't put it down and with The Road I was finding myself staying up later and also reading far more pages than I had planned on reading in one sitting because it is that well-written.

_{someone needs a haircut badly}

You are probably familiar with the story already because it is my understanding that quite a few people went to go and see the film with Viggo Mortensen even though it didn't do terribly well financially.

If you haven't seen the film and you can get your hands on the book I think it would be ever better because there were a few clutch moments in the book that would have been a lot more shocking and amazing if I had not already seen the film. Instead, I found myself waiting for these moments to happen while reading. This was just fine as well though because the way in which it is written is some of the best writing I have seen in quite some time.

The thing that gets me about this book is that the style in which it is written is something that I would normally shy away from. There are no chapters or if you must look at it that way, it is one chapter that is just over 300 pages long.

The flow of the story never drags and unlike when I was reading Watership Down I don't feel as though author Cormac McCarthy wasted any paragraphs with unnecessarily flowery wording explaining a situation or location. He gets straight to the point and does such a magnificent job making us feel emotions towards the two main characters who are never named throughout the entirety of the book. They are simply known as "boy" and "man." They thankfully took this lack of description all the way to the silver screen as well.

_{Seriously, she is getting a trim today}

This book is almost certainly in your public library and even if you don't have a particular penchant for reading, I think you will tear through this book a lot more quickly than you would expect. Cormac McCarthy was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with this book and even though I never knew who the others were that were nominated, this book definitely deserves it.

The way in which scenes are described actually makes you feel cold and hungry, just like the characters in the story are. You can feel their shivers and understand their hunger, even if you have never been in a similar situation. No words are wasted and I honestly can't think of anything to rank as a "con" with this book even though I am a terrible pessimist.

I highly suggest you seek this book out because it is without question the best book I have read since I got my glasses and really started digging into reading again.