The book club pick of the month was The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

My mother was the one to select this book, her reasoning? Being a book reader who gets through 200+ books in a year, this was one of the only books that has ever made her cry in over 15 years. Plus she remembers the entire plot line, after fifteen years.

When I went to GoodReads to see what the general public thought of this book, I learned my lesson to never look to the general public for literary fiction books. With over 890K in ratings and 53K in reviews, I should have guessed that it would be a mixed bag.

Some wrote on how they thought Cormac McCarthy's prose was purely attention-seeking, an attempt to be like Hemingway or some other version of him.

Others thought it was repetitive and redundant for most of the book, and many thought it was quite deserving of its prizes.

My first thought when getting into the book was, "I really shouldn't read this book while my toddler is playing in front of me. Many fellow readers have commented on how as a parent, this book cuts deep. You know from the beginning the doomsday nature of the post-apocalyptic world, one of them is going to die. You just spend every chapter wondering if it's going to be the father or the son.

As for the grammar of the book, as a writer who was in the middle of revisions during the time I read this book, I may or may not have shouted "WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST COMMAS?" a time or two. After researching his reasoning for it-- I can appreciate what he was trying to do by "stripping it down to the base of storytelling" but still, would some punctuation have killed him?

All that being said, I was happy to have experienced the Pulitzer prize winner, but it was quite dreary. Also, I did in fact cry at the end-- but I am not as tough as my mother, it doesn't take fifteen years in between reads to have that happen.

If you're at all interested in a video format of my reaction to Mr. McCarthy's work-- Check out my tiktok @books.by.blake

Have you read it? What rating did you give it?

Happy Reading Book Besties!

xo B