The first thing that struck me about The Road, was that it was a lot like much of the zombie books I read. They are all essentially survival books, or as many call it in the zombie fiction world, survival horror. At the essence of survival horror is that there is some sort of global phenomenon and wipes out much of the world's population and we follow along survivors who try to make due in a lawless land with the original phenomena, and the horrors it brings, hanging overhead. Though we quickly find out, in most of these books, that the original threat is not the biggest threat out there, and that threat is other survivors.
With The Road, we follow along an unnamed man and his young son, after some unnamed global catastrophe, as they make their way along the road, heading toward the sea in hopes of finding....something. The global disaster happened some years ago and resources are scarce so many of the surviving humans have resorted to some horrible acts to stay alive. The unnamed father continues to hold on to his morals and teaches his son to be one of the "good-guys" in this mad world as he also tries to protect his young child from the horrors that men do.
Filled with sub textual religious overtones, The Road paints a bleak picture of a world without order and a world in which people will do almost anything to survive. Haunting in parts but ultimately uplifting (in my opinion) without going for the "Hollywood ending", I can see why The Road is a multi-award winning work of fiction. I particularly liked that while it seemed that there wasn't much action happening as they traveled along the road, a lot was happening, if you catch my drift.
The Road is a quick read and a good read. I am interested to hear other opinions on the book. Did you find it depressing or ultimately positive as I did?
My Grade: A-
LL
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