The Road - Cormac Mcarthy
So, first things first, the grammar in this book makes it incredibly difficult to read. Some. Of. The. Sentences. Are. Like. This. And with no quotes you have no idea who is talking and when they are. The longer conversations took me a while to get through because I'd have to go back to the last time "the man said" and then follow the pattern to see who was talking at the time. The conversations usually consist of the boy being scared and the man soothing him, there isn't much substance as to who these people are. The story concept is good, the story itself is engaging. But the grammatical errors, the lack of quotes, the way the characters are described really brings me away.
If you're looking for an explanation of how the world came to be this way, turn around, you won't find it here. There's nothing. You get no explanation of the world or how it came to be, you just dive in and follow the man and the boy (that's what they are, they have no names which further brings me away from them, though I'm guessing this was an artistic decision to make you feel closer?) on their adventure and hope for the best. You pray for a good ending, but I'm not going to tell you if you get it or not, just know...I was let down. I went in looking for a heart-wrenching tale and came out with a "oh...well that was sad" kind of feeling. I won't reflect on this book tomorrow, I won't remember it in a week. It was...a book. It wasn't brilliant, it wasn't a masterpiece, it was a book with a good concept and a poor way of putting it out there. I liked it enough to finish it, don't get me wrong. But I didn't like it enough to really put much thought into it. I've had books that for weeks after I was googling, message boarding, conversing about, but this one gets this one review, then it'll sit on my shelf and collect dust.
I felt like what I was reading was incomplete, a rough draft. This is something that should have went through the mill a thousand more times, and then it would have become great! Like I said, the concept of the story is amazing, I wanted to like it, it caught my interest. But sadly it just didn't keep it. It's a dark book, it's a sad book, and it uses some spooky scenes to get your attention back and make you focus. I can see where people would get sucked into the veil of this book being the most ground-breaking thing they've ever read, but unfortunately that just didn't happen to me. I've read way better, but I've also read way worse.
The Road gets 2/5 stars from me.
So, first things first, the grammar in this book makes it incredibly difficult to read. Some. Of. The. Sentences. Are. Like. This. And with no quotes you have no idea who is talking and when they are. The longer conversations took me a while to get through because I'd have to go back to the last time "the man said" and then follow the pattern to see who was talking at the time. The conversations usually consist of the boy being scared and the man soothing him, there isn't much substance as to who these people are. The story concept is good, the story itself is engaging. But the grammatical errors, the lack of quotes, the way the characters are described really brings me away.
If you're looking for an explanation of how the world came to be this way, turn around, you won't find it here. There's nothing. You get no explanation of the world or how it came to be, you just dive in and follow the man and the boy (that's what they are, they have no names which further brings me away from them, though I'm guessing this was an artistic decision to make you feel closer?) on their adventure and hope for the best. You pray for a good ending, but I'm not going to tell you if you get it or not, just know...I was let down. I went in looking for a heart-wrenching tale and came out with a "oh...well that was sad" kind of feeling. I won't reflect on this book tomorrow, I won't remember it in a week. It was...a book. It wasn't brilliant, it wasn't a masterpiece, it was a book with a good concept and a poor way of putting it out there. I liked it enough to finish it, don't get me wrong. But I didn't like it enough to really put much thought into it. I've had books that for weeks after I was googling, message boarding, conversing about, but this one gets this one review, then it'll sit on my shelf and collect dust.
I felt like what I was reading was incomplete, a rough draft. This is something that should have went through the mill a thousand more times, and then it would have become great! Like I said, the concept of the story is amazing, I wanted to like it, it caught my interest. But sadly it just didn't keep it. It's a dark book, it's a sad book, and it uses some spooky scenes to get your attention back and make you focus. I can see where people would get sucked into the veil of this book being the most ground-breaking thing they've ever read, but unfortunately that just didn't happen to me. I've read way better, but I've also read way worse.
The Road gets 2/5 stars from me.
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