Book Review: Hide the razor blades and don't read this after a break-up or losing a job. Cold, dark, relentless. Cormac McCarthy has written a tour de force. The Road is a post-apocalyptic, after the bomb or some-environmental-disaster kind of tale. I'm unsure if this would be what is popularly called dystopian; there are two kinds of dystopias: too much government or not enough. This falls into the latter kind. The Road is complete misery redeemed only by love and the timely intervention of fate. A horrible sameness crossed with the monstrously unexpected. Long periods of boredom, punctuated by moments of sheer terror. The characters have so little, so numbed by loss there's not even many words, only the physical presence of each other and tattered memories. Usually when I finish reading a book, I'm itching to talk about it (which is where this blog comes in). But the experience of reading The Road is almost something that can't be discussed, because to put my thoughts into words, is to diminish the story itself. By talking about it, I only take away from what's there on the page. It was an experience, not an intellectual challenge. I'm sorry if that doesn't make sense, maybe The Road just has to be read. You'll know in about five pages if this is something you want to read, or can read. I couldn't stop reading, even tho it was somewhere I never want to be. {Pulitzer Prize Winner 2007}[4 Stars]
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