The Road (Oprah's Book Club)

by Cormac McCarthy

Book Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE The searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive. A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307387895
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 287 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.1" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

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got the wrong copy

Don’t bother

This is literally one of the worst books I have ever read. Pretentious writing with terrible sentence structure and no plot. I do not understand how this book is so popular. Just save yourself the time and money.

Incredible. A must read.

I went into this book not having it read anything by Cormac McCarthy but I found it really enjoyable right away. The book is a pager turner as there are no chapters and you can sort of get sucked into it. The book is about a father and a son and their relationship as they try to survive a post-apocalyptic America. The writing is incredible and it is full of twist and turns. Definitely recommend picking it up.

One of the worst i’ve ever read.

Nothing happens in this book. if you love an author that describes the same scene over and over again with no real advancement in the story look no further. Post apocalyptic is supposed to be suspenseful and have some sort of action. the characters were too smart and got too lucky, nothing bad happens until the end and that was predictable from the start.

Great book!

Excellent read, highly recommend

I'm in agony

This is my first apocalypse book and I was sucked into every agonizing page. This book captured you in a way that is indescribably depressing, so much so, that I finished it in 2 days.

Amazing book and an amazing author

One of my favorite books and the book that got me into Cormac McCarthy and back into reading. No quotation marks are used when a character speaks which confused me for a bit while reading, but you get used to it. It makes you even more careful in reading as you are examining every word. A very good book about a father’s love.

What you expect from McCarthy. Five star read.

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I relished this book and it impacted me. Enjoyed is the wrong word.

This is a heartbreaking, visceral, emotional, and evocative novel. I can't say that I "enjoyed" it so much as it impacted me, like an unrelenting, heart-wrenching movie. It is simultaneously beautiful and bleak, hopeful and despairing, frustrating and human. It is one of the most "real" science fiction or apocalypse literature I've ever had the pleasure and difficulty of digesting. An absolute must-read.

It was Ok

I didn't love this how so many others did, but I also didn't hate it the way some people did. I would strongly suggest, if the writing style is an issue, to listen to the audiobook. That helped me get through the book with minimal confusion.

Excellent

The story was gloriously bleak and exceptional.

"Not with a bang, but with a whisper"

No, Cormac McCarthy does not write a YA novel about the apocalypse. Instead, he presents us with a novel that is heartbreaking, and real. As a love letter to his son, he reveals that the materials we hold do not make us human, but the very innate goodness we are given.

Not So Impressed

I like some post apocalypse books, but this was so dark, dismal and so unrelentingly a downer that the enjoyment and anticipation that I felt going into the book, did not last long. There are so many many better less dark books of this type out there, that I would recommend saving this until last.

Simply the best

You have to realize how absolutely superlative this book is. McCarthy has created his own literary rules, stripped the language, taken away the paragraphs, the chapters, the commas, the apostrophes, even many of the verbs, and left ... simply ... words. He names no one, not even the main characters--they're simply "the man" and "the boy." McCarthy may be one of the few writers in modern America who can get away with this and succeed. His writing slows you down. To read it you can't hurry. You'll miss its depth. The Road is not a pretty story. It will leave images in your head for days. But it's so well worth reading. When all is desolate in the world, you still have love, and that love reflects the spirit of God. That's what this book is about.

Strangely Difficult To Put Down - Easy Read - Grim Story

This is not a happy story or a happy place. The writing is so good it's almost unrecognizable. You just don't encounter authors with an actual vocabulary these days. The story is depressing and may affect people in a negative way. Oddly, I wanted to keep reading even though I wasn't necessarily enjoying the story. In the end I'd have to give it five stars, simply for the excellence of craft.

"This is the way the world ends..."

In a barren, ashen landscape that was once the United States of America, a weary man and his young son are traveling south in search of the ocean. They scavenge for food and shelter, and they must constantly avoid marauding bands of fellow survivors who would prey on them. The one thing that sustains them on their way is their ferocious love for each other. THE ROAD is the story of their heartbreaking journey. Every now and then, when we need reminding, a great writer shows us one possible future for our species if we continue on the path to self-destruction. In 1957, Nevil Shute gave us ON THE BEACH, and now, 50 years later, Cormac McCarthy has given us an eloquent new version of the same cautionary tale. We didn't listen then. Perhaps we can learn something now. I have rarely been so moved by a work of literature. To call this the most important novel of 2006 is an understatement. Read it and weep. Read it and be uplifted. Just read it--before it's too late.