Do I Like The Road?

By Anonymous -
To put it simply, yes.  Overall I found this book to be fairly simple and easy to follow when compared to some of the other AP books.  I found it very enjoyable because I could sit down without having to stress super hard over looking for literary devices and such.  Also, this was the first book this year where I was able to read it at night without falling asleep.  Most of the AP books are relatively dry and will put you to sleep in no time.  However, The Road's fast paced reading style allowed for me to stay focused and not get lost in the chapters.  As a whole I found this novel to be pretty good, but the ending is where it got me.

 To me, the ending was just ok.  Yes, McCarthy was definitely trying to pull on my heart strings but I wouldn't let him.  Basically every death scene between a father and a son is sad, but for some reason this one was not that sad for me.  I don't know if it was because the characters themselves were kind of dry, or if I just didn't really care that much about them.  And I think that is it, I just didn't really care.  It's only a 280 page novel and didn't take me long at all to read.  Plus, there isn't really much about either The Man or The Boy that makes me relate to them or feel close to them in any way besides for feeling sorry for them.  I was not emotionally attached to them enough.  However, I do enjoy the part of the ending where The Boy meets up with another man who invites him to join his group.  That gave me some closure that was necessary for me to be satisfied with this book.  If it just ended with the father dying I would not have been happy because I wouldn't know what would happen to The Boy or really anything at all.  But because I know that The Boy is going to carry on I feel better about investing my time and effort into this novel.  I think I would have even liked it more if The Boy ended up killing himself too than the book just ending with the father dying and that's it.  

 More than just liking it however, I found that all of the motifs, themes, ect. that McCarthy put into this book were actually very meaningful.  The two sides of death can actually relate to other issues of today.  Whether it is easier to throw in the towel and give up or to carry on through the hardships.  All of his literary devices scattered around in the novel actually made me stop and think about other issues outside of the book.  That is something that a book has not done to me in a long time.  So, overall I give it a thumbs up.

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