I've read a lot of praise and a lot of criticism for this book, and to my mind, a true review would come down somewhere in the middle. The Road is written in a Hemingway-esque style, terse and uncomplicated with short sentences and simple expressions. This meant that I couldn't get caught up in lyrical language or go off on flights of fancy about what I would do in the situation - the stark presentation of the story (and it is admittedly an elementary one) kept me fixedly focused on what was happening. And what was happening was, true, hopeless and horrifying. But I didn't find that to be a negative, as others have. Different stories present different realities, and this was a reality of a world without optimism, a world of grey and ash and hunger. Would it make a great bedtime story? Not really. But does it make a fascinating portrayal of a particular future? That it does.