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On The Road 
A gritty and heartbreaking view of a father and son in post-apocalyptic America. The prose is stunningly beautiful, especially given the dark subject matter. Even with the bleakest of backdrops this story is really about unconditional love between a father and son.
Recommendation: There's a reason this novel won the Pulitzer prize, and it only takes a few days to read. The Road tells us that even when there is no hope, we've still got our humanity and love. I watched the movie immediately after I finished the book, and it's good too.
powerful reading
The story is captivating and powerful. It's about father/son, survival, fate/god, and struggle to keep your morals. However, I have to say the final result of reading this book is to make me buy extra ammo.
Did not live up to the hype 
It is a rare feeling in a 'classic' book to find that the two hundredth page is almost identical to the first.
Perhaps the author's intention was to show the bleak repetition of a world shed of almost all delight. If so, then he succeeded.
'By day the banished sun circles the Earth like a grieving mother with a lamp.'
Beautiful, poetic, and yet... for me at least... so often uninteresting.
Dark and depressing majesty....
When you look at it just the right way, "The road" starts to resemble several of Stephen King's books at once. Whether "The stand" or "Dark Tower" (heptalogy is it?) or any other post-apocalyptic book that has ever been writen since the invention of the genre. And in a way, Ursula Le Guin has every right to be pissed about double standards of literary circles who wilfully chose to ignore entire body of speculative fiction which, during one time or the other, concerned itself with these themes. But, soon as Cormac McCarty choose to write something that resembles the forementioned genre, everybody was suddenly up on their feet shouting how great and brilliant the book was and how it is going the change the concept of American literature in upcoming years. You may, of course, listen to those voices with sceptical doubt, or you may dive into this book and judge for yourself. I did precisely that (both actually) and was surprised - book was actually good.
First of all, this isn't the action packed post-apocalyptic story, and the upcoming movie will probably be total disaster. Why? Because Hollywood in it's entire history couldn't make good meditational movie about human condition. And "The road" is precisely that - meditation about humanity which can (and does) work in medeium of language but is utterly untranslatable into anything else. Only person that could have done it in a way this books deserves is Michelangelo Antonioni and he's been dead for couple of years. So, that being said, you should know that narrationwise and plotwise this book is as simple as it gets. We have father and son which travel through destroyed country in search for someting. Hope, new way of existence, meaning of life or whatever you call it. Actuall process of getting there, travelling on the road, avoding band of savages, starving etc. is just the backside story, something which can easily be disposed off. All of it is a conventional, genre stuff, seen and experienced in many a novel out there. But, what makes "The road" different from great percentage of post-apocalyptic body of work is it's language, it's structure and tone which is deeply personal and evocative. One of those languages that pull you in, from which you have trouble letting go, constant staying into back of your head, nagging and being present. And that's one of the ingredients of great literature.
McCarthy goes on introspective journey here. There is no moralty present, there is no hero or group whose ideology must always be shining beacon on the end of the dark passage. Every ideology is destroyed, every bond is shatterd and only thing that remains is mere instinct of survival. Question that concerns McCarthy here is this one - how can we, when confronted with total dehumanisation (and you may write anything inside this statement, from free market ideology to totalitarism), remain humane. Do we want to, why do we want it, and can we actually do that? If civilisation is destroyed, upon which grounds whe can build our identity. And final answer to this question is inconclusive, because lanuage in it's totality cannot represent the New World. And upon notion of New World this book ends, remaining silent on what comes next. Reader takes on alone.
It's a pleasure to read this one, it's evocative and deeply disturbing, and questions posed here wait for us just behind the corner. "The road" sets direciton, but travelling we have to do for ourselves.
Uh... 
Poppa?
Yes?
Does our story have a point?
No
No?
No
Does it have well developed characters?
No
Okay
Okay
Poppa?
Yes?
Why would anyone read this pile of crap?
Because
Because?
Because literary critics are herd animals. They don't know why, but they think they have to like this book. So they'll write great reviews and the public will fall for it.
Will anyone like this book Poppa?
No
Okay
Okay
After reading this book and then reading the reviews of several newspapers and literary critics I am now more convinced than ever that critics will give high marks to any book that they either don't understand or that is so remarkably boring they think it must be important. Yes, McCarthy's work here is remarkable for it's prose, but it's story is astounding in it's complete inability to make me care. There's no point to this story. No explanation of the apocalyptic future, no sense of what the man is hoping to accomplish. Nothing. It is an exceptionally brilliant example of writer hubris and pretentiousness. The idea that he can get away with writing a story with no beginning, no arc, no plot, and no ending is astounding. I'm sort of angry I invested any time in either these characters or this story. Literary critics may consider Cormac McCarthy a brilliant writer, but I consider him a bloated, pretentious hack.
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