I found this book hard to put down. Just read it!

I really enjoyed this novel. It is about a man and his son trying to survive in a post apocalyptic world. The story mostly focuses on the relationship between father and son with the backdrop of the end of the world. It can be a bit slow in the beginning but quickly picks up. There are some disturbing issues that are addressed but it makes sense in this story. I highly recommend this book.

I had to muster my strength to read this novel - I usually like to read something with a little 'ray of hope' and I was pretty certain that this book was not going to have one. "The Road" is the grim and incredibly dark story of a father and son in a post-apocalyptic world. They travel in search of the coast, scavenging food and provisions from the ashen wasteland. They are battered by the elements and careful to evade the gangs of cannibals who scour the land, preying on the vulnerable. The novel has stirred plenty of reflective thinking on my part - I marvel at the nameless protagonist's devotion to "keep carrying the fire" for his son in the most desperate setting one could ever imagine. McCarthy's writing style is stark yet poetic. My favourite lines (they gave me shivers): "At the tide line a woven mat of weeds and the ribs of fishes in their millions stretching along the shore as far as eye could see like an isocline of death. One vast salt sepulchre. Senseless. Senseless."

This was an excellent book. Not too often do you get a book that starts in the middle of nowhere, and it works well. This book begins with a scene where the unnamed father and son are already on their journey. Their relationship makes this a good choice not only for an avid reader, but to an audience that wants to know about a close relationship. This father-son bond drives the two to the limit. It is impossible to explain how powerful this novel is without actually giving anything away. It does start off a bit slow, but once you’re a couple of pages into it (I’d say around 30), it gets really really good. Highly recommend

This book is really about "the father" and "the son" and their glorified relationship. The apocalyptic setting is just an excuse to overtly indulge the exaggerated sentimentality men reserve for their homoerotic bonding. Nothing much happens in this book except for the father and the son walking down a road towards a warmer region (the sea) so they can survive another winter, and looking for any food along the way, and trying to avoid other bands of people who might turn out to be cannibals. "The man" is always telling "the boy" that he will do anything to protect him. And "the boy" just keeps repeating "okay". Most of the book is just this choppy dialogue constantly implying the great bond between father and son. This book had potential. But McCarthy's classic male fixation on the father-son relationship as something of a holy miracle is just cliche, lame, and annoying. If you're into that, then perhaps you will like this book. Otherwise, don't waste your time and read something else.

Great book, a fast read and deeply moving story.

One amazing book! The story is gripping from start to finish. I don't know how to put this, but just reading the words... the way McCarthy cobbles them together is an artform in itself, far above and beyond what's expected. The story is definitely loaded, and it's not for the faint of heart; however I did not find it sinister or depressing in any way. Quite the opposite in fact. It's a story of perseverance and stubborn will to succeed, and there's something very positive in that.

I found this book on a list of the 100 best books ever or something like that. I gotta say - I just don't get it. It was dark and dismal and down right depressing. You know all those movies that get tons of Academy Awards and then you watch it and you go, "huh??" I think it was like that. Or maybe I'm just not sophisticated enough.... :) I must admit - I couldn't finish it. I think I'd have slit my wrists if I had to read it until the end.

McCarthy has the rare gift to write utterly black material that somehow becomes uplifting on reflection. Suttree (bum living under a bridge), Child of God (pedophile living in a cave), Blood Meridian (genocide in the old West)... and yet every time I finish one of his books I feel... good???... and I can't wait to start the next. I believe he's a real American classic who will someday be thought of in the ranks of Hemingway and Steinbeck.

Dark, grim, violent and yet ultimately hopeful. beautifully written. I read this soon after the (complicated) birth of my first son, a situation which probably left me even more open than usual ot the power of McCarthy's spare but powerful prose and terrifying images. ultimately it is about people being stripped right down to their essentials, and at the core nothing is as powerful as the love of a parent and child for each other. btw -- McCarthy in interviews has alluded to the nature of the unnamed catastrophe being possibly a meteor (hence the long shear of light with a series of concussions), like the dinosaur killer.