Book 3: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Road is one of those powerful books that leaves you thinking about humanity and your place in humanity. Good Guys and Bad Guys...what makes one good what makes one bad and given the situation which side would you choose? The Road takes place in a post apocalyptic world. There are no more cities no more towns just ash and the ruins of modern highways. One of the things that makes this book so powerful to me is that McCarty never fully explains how exactly the world cam to its demise. It left the reader room to wonder and worry what happened could it happen to use. So many of these recent Armageddon types of movies give such wordy explanations as to why the world is going to end that gives you license, to deny the validity of it ever happening to us. The Road offers to comforts how it ended and how it could have been prevented (no green messages) the world is gone and that's it.


The story is that of a man and his son trudging along the road trying to survive anyway they can. There names are never given they are referred to as the man and the boy. It is so compelling, they are all each other has, they only reason they have not given up is each other. They see horrors that are unspeakable. Death and destruction are commonplace to them. All along the road there are melted and charred remains of people and as horrible as they find it they have leaned to live it, it is there reality now, it has been the boys only reality. The other glimpses of people in this new world are horrible. Cannibals who scour the country side searching for people to kill and eat. They happen upon a house, a commune of sorts, where the cannibals have put the other humans in a cellar like hams in a smokehouse. They see a group of people roasting a headless and gutted infant (that scene was tough for me I almost had to stop reading).

Yet through all this the boy remains good, he wants to help others, even though they are starving to death he would give what little they have to someone else. Constantly worried about other people he is a beacon of light in a world that has gone black and he is his fathers only reason to live. They come upon a store of food underground (like a bunker you always hear crazy people building with canned food, blankets, batteries, shoes, everything they need (why they just do not say there still escapes me) and the first thing the boy wants to do is thank the people who died for giving them what they have. There really is no concept of God in this book the man has lost his faith and it leaves you to ask yourself  in a world like that wouldn't you?

In the end the road is long the going is tough and the man dies (he has been coughing blood for a long time and there is no medicine) The boy finds a family to go on with who have a little boy (they have been following them for a while he keeps seeing the little boy throughout the novel and they man does not believe him) Though the book is desolate and it seems there is no recovering from a world that is gone through this boy you think maybe the world can regain itself.

Book Two: Two Rivers by T. Greenwood

Two Rivers by T. Greenwood is one of the best books I have read in a while. It is so beautifully written that even though it toggles back and forth between two time periods you never feel lost. Both time lines are woven together so richly that the tapestry is never broken. So many times in books that switch time periods I have to keep flipping back to keep track of characters and events that happened previously but I did not have to flip back once in this book of course I could barely put the book down.

  Two rivers takes place in Two Rivers Vermont at the scene of a horrific train crash. Harper Montgomery a train station employee rushes to the river to help save however he can. There he meets a mysterious pregnant black girl who reminds him of a terrible event 12 years previous. A even that forever changed his life.

  I really do not want to put any spoilers n this I want you to read this book and be just has surprised and enthralled in this story as I was in the beginning and knowing certain events will ruin events in the story. So I will just give you a few key points that will not ruin anything.

 Harper is a single father to a daughter named Shelly, and he never feels like he has done right by her. Half of the story is the love story of Harper and Shelly's mother Betsy who dies the day Shelly was born (I wont tell you how because that will ruin something later in the story!) On the day Shelly was born and Betsy dies a terrible crime took place that Harper was involved with and ever since that day he has carried a heavy weight of guilt on his shoulders (again can not tell you what because it will ruin future events but I can say it was a racial crime and that is what compels him to take the girl in).Harpers mother was very involved with the civil rights movement despite there realtive isolation from events in Two Rivers.
 
I absolutly loved the love story between Harper and Betsy wich begins ay age twelve and never real;ly ends despite her death. Harper just loves her so unconditionally it breaks your heart to know she dies. When travels back in time and desribes their love story it just takes your breath away. It is not an in your face Romeo and Julliet affair. There love blossoms so slowly an so sweetly you have no doubt they were destuned to be together. They start out as best friends the kind of friends that share every thing together. a kind of friendship so rare many people never have the pleasure of having one. Harper loves Betsy from the very beginning the story is told completley from Harpers point of view so we never know excatly what Betsy is thinking but Harper kind of grows on her. He starts out her best friend and than she realizes he is much much more. There love finally is exactly where you would want it to be, married, baby on the way, tiny starter house and job prospects when Betsy dies and your aches to know how the story would have ended if things had just happened diffferent.

The book is beautiful bittersweet and will keep you awake all night worrying and wondering what will happen next. My husband found me awake at 3 am and assumed the baby had woken up but I just could not stop reading this book.