Listened to the audiobook with Tom Stechschulte (who does a great job bringing the main characters to life). Minimalistic and nihilistic, this book proves that if well written, a fairly generic post-apocalyptic story can have literary flair. With simple but well-crafted prose, this book manages to bring home the horrors and day-to-day problems of a post-apocalyptic setting that many readers may have become somewhat desensitised to. Not at all fun, but thought-provoking in a way that many more trigger-happy media in the genre can only dream to be.

At times, for a reader more used to generic fantasy used to reading books oozing with plot, this book felt more like a stylistic exercise than a story. So fair warning: don’t read this one for the plot, but read it for the atmosphere, the prose and the emotions.

This is a good read for someone looking for a work of speculative fiction that is somewhat closer in style to today’s literary novels.

The tone of The Road is very quiet, almost subdued. The boy and his father speak only occasionally, and when they do their words are often brief and simple. Yet it is exactly the sparse use of language that adds weight to their conversations and actions. The love between father and son is portrayed very beautifully, which makes it all the more poignant to consider the incredibly difficult choices the man has to make for himself and for his son. This book is not an action-packed thriller, but if you can appreciate a story that is a bit more of a ‘slow burner’, definitely give this one a go. The material is very heavy and it does get quite dark in places, so do be prepared for that.

I read this book for the first time when I was in high school, and I reread it recently in audiobook format. In this case I would recommend reading the text because it better highlights the beautiful, minimalistic use of language, but since the audiobook is performed very well this is also a good option.