Finishing The Road gave me mixed feelings. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the man dying instead of the boy and then the veteran coming and saving him from the cruel world that he was left to live in. The whole ending seems very odd to me. It didn't go along with anything the book was previous to the man's death. The writing stayed the same but the whole idea of someone saving the boy was basically a whole different idea.
Throughout the entire book, we see men and women who have faced a hard and tragic life. Almost all of them have ended in death or unknown results. As readers, we can assume that they didn't survive. The people in the basement, being held prisoner, waiting to be eaten by others. We can assume they died. Ely, the first encounter the man and the boy have on the road, we can assume that he died when considering his age and lack of food he had. We can assume the thief died because he didn't have any clothing or food when the boy and the man last saw him. So why is the boy's fate different.
If the world was truely in ruin and despair then the boy would have never been found and would have died along with his father. It seems surreal that people with two other children found him and willingly took him in. Did they have any food to share or did they just want to eat the boy. Did karma play a role in the boy's survival? Maybe all the good the boy showed for others changed the balance in the world and the world let him live. Unfortunately, we will never know because the book ended with an annoying cliff hanger. So, to say I am unsatisfied is an understatement.
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