The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, is a beautiful but dark and heavy read about familial relationships and sacrifice. It is set in a post-apocalyptic America where climate change has been extremified to the point where people have to migrate south just to live in healthy temperatures. It shows a dark ending for the world and the effects of climate change on people and how they live. Which is why, despite releasing in 2009 it still has an important theme to this day.

This is the hottest year in history yet again, with it being around 1.7 Celsius above pre-industrial times on July 22 and the clock is ticking down on how much time we as humans have left before we can no longer reverse its effects. Yet it seems like no one cares about this fact, like our climate isn’t a big deal to all of us.

The Road is important because it shows us our endpoint, it shows us what not caring causes, its world is the essence of complacency. Not even in just the world, in its characters as well. There’s a scene where the father and a son find a bunker with food to last them a few months, and while the son wants to remain there for the rest of his life to wait for the temperature to get better. The father tells him why the need to leave and shows him how the food will expire. This scene is about the entire book, the son doesn’t want change while the father knows they need it. We don’t want to do something to change the climate or if we do, we don’t want to put much of any work into it but we as a society also know we need to.

Overall, this book was great, not only is it just a quality story with interesting relationships between characters, it also has a great message that still applies today. I would recommend it for anyone looking for a darker read with a good message.