It's an excellent book, and I don't understand all the hate it receives on this website. The book was never meant to be a typical adventure science fiction book, or even a typical post-apocalyptic story. There was no need to invoke Rule of Cool. That's not what Mc Carthy was trying to do. Plot doesn't mean you have to have a resolution, or even a bad guy. There are lots of different kinds of plots. As far as the crisis never being explained, it's irrelevant. This story is not about what caused the apocalypse. It's not about writing a cool sci-fi story. It's not about trying to conform to typical standards of science fiction or plotting or writing style. Mc Carthy is an experimental writer, and his other books are written in a similar style.
What "hate it receives on this website"? Its own page calls it "his masterpiece" or "brilliant".
Read the other review and its comments.
Finally, a reviewer that gets it!
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The Road review
I actually liked this book. Granted, the writing style is unorthodox, but that's why I like it. This is very much a stream of consciousness book, and is very, very realistic. There isn't much plot development (or plot, for that matter), but then again, there shouldn't be. There is no plot because life has no plot. The event that caused the end of the world is never explained, because the main characters never learned it. That's why I like this book; there is absolutely no pandering to the Rule of Cool.