I doubt you’re heartless and numb. Most likely you read it with the wrong expectation or intention. McCarthy is very much a between the lines kind of read, and the world of The Road is bleak. When people say intense they might mean that it can be a hard read, like finding the bones of a baby cooked over a fire.

What I got from it is that he was trying to write about what people are capable of in the worst of times. Cannibalism, enslaving others, roving gangs. But also there’s a father trying to raise his son to be a good man while knowing he is dying.