Thursday, April 15, 2010

The Road


This book was an assignment for my Contemporary Fiction class. But after reading it, it seemed to be more than just an assignment. It was a life changing novel that held me in its pages throughout the entire story. If you've never read the book, I really recommend adding it to your summer reading.

The story is about a man and his son traveling through a desolated America struggling to survive.We are left to guess what happened to the world, the boy being born after the disaster occurred. There are no chapters, punctuation is missing, and the text is very simple, because in a world with no rules, who needs these? The dialogue is quiet, yet frightening, and the characters are simple and strong. The son, who starts the book at what we can only guess is 7 or 8, matures so much throughout the story as he goes through all these horrifying situations. The father's only reason for survival is his son, as he doesn't even seem to care about his own self except that he has to be alive to take care of his son.

These are the only characters throughout the entire book, except for a few other loners who have survived this long in the ashes. Some of these loners are considered the "bad guys," leaving behind the morals of the pre-disastrous world in order to survive, but others are good, and the boy keeps the morality within his father by helping these survivors. It is a touching tale of how these two characters must keep each other alive, the father keeping his son breathing and the son keeping the father from crossing the line.

I'm not kidding, if you have not read this book, then you are to stop what you are doing and pick it up right now. You will fall in love with the characters, the words, the style, and the idea behind this story. It is simple, yet profound, and I can't think of any other way to describe it. It is definitely the best book I have read all year, if not my college career and beyond.

1 comment:

Eva said...

Great description--I think this is probably going on my summer reading list after that plug :)