Five Days of Books:: 4

First off, I must apologize for any run on sentences or parts that didn't make sense from my last post.  I was up late working on pricing and organizing items for my garage sale this weekend and just before midnight I realized, "Oh!  I haven't written my next book recommendation!"  So I was very tired, but glad that I got it in just in the nick of time.  Not that anyone really cares what time I post; I just wanted to meet my own self-imposed challenge! Anyway...I just had to clarify that!  

Ok, onward-- Book 4 is definitely darker in tone.  The Road by Cormac McCarthy was an Oprah's book club pick that I thought sounded interesting and outside of my normal genre selections.  Two words to sum up this book:  Love and Survival. This is not a lighthearted read.  In fact it is gut-wrenching and intense.  The story takes place in a Postapocalyptic America.  Although never explicitly stated what event caused this utter destruction, I picked up hints that a it might have been a nuclear holocaust.  This is just my guess.  But the past is not important in this book as a father and son , "each the other's world entire", constantly move forward, trying to reach the coast, hoping that they will find other survivors.  The landscape is gray, bitterly cold, and brutal.  The duo deal with extreme fatigue, hunger, sickness and exhaustion as well as trying to defend themselves from the cannibalistic bandits who also roam the land. In spite of these awful circumstances there burns a deep, unconditional, self-sacrificing love between the two that I found incredibly beautiful.  This book delves into the idea of what humanity can and will do when in the midst of extreme situations.  I am very glad that I went outside of my "comfort zone" to read this moving and haunting story.