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Most Helpful Reviews

Liked It

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.
gregory v
  • Rated 5 stars

Well, I first read this book twenty years ago, and then again about ten years ago, so I guess it's about time to give it another read. Anyway, from my memory, I recall loving this book because it is about possibilities, that it creates that spirit you feel at the beginning of a road trip, that it reminds me of driving across the US with nowhere special to go, that any direction was as good as another as long as you got on the road and went. Of course, the end is necessarily unsatisfying...

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Didn’t Like It

2 of 2 members found this review helpful.
Bekkah
  • Rated 1 stars

Highly overrated. The characters seemed like sad, lost, wandering, delinquents…not knowing what they want out of life and constantly on the move in order to run from their troubled pasts and failures. People mention the ‘great friendships’ and I wonder if they actually READ this book at all?! These were not friendships…these were destructive acquaintances who at multiple times turned their backs on each other. Very disappointing.

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Community:
  • Rated 3.942885 stars
Amazon:
  • Rated 4.117647 stars
 

Newest Comments

  • Slinger

    slinger said:

    A time slice. Something that could never happen today. A portrait of people the way Kerouac saw them. Not an attempt to make likable characters to sell books. Uniquely captures the naivety of post war America. The Dharma bums is another attempt at the same story. Read together you almost get an idea what Kerouac was trying to say. I have read a lot of his work but I can't say I liked or disliked any of them. They are what you read. Its like air. You breath it because your alive. On the Road you read because your a reader.

    posted Thursday, September 11 2008
  • Lachie

    lachie said:

    No other book has had a greater influence on my life. It inspired me to travel and just absorb life rather than coast by.

    posted Thursday, July 3 2008
  • Amanda

    amanda said:

    If you live in NYC you should check this out: http://shelfari.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/03/on-the-roadagai.html

    posted Thursday, March 13 2008
  • Dale M

    dale m said:

    If you've read it once and want to re-read it you don't really need to buy the Anniversay addition (unless you are buying it for part of a person library or something)

    posted Sunday, March 9 2008
  • Daniel C

    daniel c said:

    I wish I would have read this the year it was published. I was not alive, but I constantly wonder what it would have been like to pick up a book by Kerouac during the time where writers took themselves too seriously.

    posted Tuesday, February 12 2008 ( | view 1 reply )
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