Cormac McCarthy books are awesome

Blood Meridian
The Road
Child of God
Outer Dark

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if I'd started with Blood Meridian I may never have read another

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Same. I struggled to finish it.

Exact opposite for The Road. Couldn't put it down.

Blood Meridian for me was way more of a slog than All the Pretty Horses. I would give that a try and see what you think! He still has the same style with the run-on sentences and lack of quotation marks/attribution but it has better pacing and a more linear storyline. I didn’t feel compelled to start this thread for BM but I did after finishing ATPH.

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I'm not trying to be a contrarian but I think maybe I just don't "get" CM. Or maybe his works just went right over or beside my head. I've only read BM but man...I hated it. Thought it was dreadfully dull with hundreds of pages of absolutley nothing happening intermixed with ever so brief interruptions of rape/killing/looting/pillaging.

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Same. I hated the road and BM. Didn’t read any more.

Read blood meridian last year and didn’t appreciate it until I found myself thinking about it a lot weeks after I had finished it. Its one of those that stuck with me which makes it great

Finished All the Pretty Horses last month and absolutely loved it. However, I’m reading The Crossing now and it’s a slog. I’m about 2/3 done and ready to be done with it. Not sure if I’m going to read Cities on the Plain or not.

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Read blood meridian last year and didn’t appreciate it until I found myself thinking about it a lot weeks after I had finished it. It’s one of those that stuck with me which makes it great

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This was exactly my experience!!

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Finished All the Pretty Horses last month and absolutely loved it. However, I’m reading The Crossing now and it’s a slog. I’m about 2/3 done and ready to be done with it. Not sure if I’m going to read Cities on the Plain or not.

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As someone who just finished ATPH and is about to start The Crossing I do not like this post

It may just be me, I’ve seen several people on here say it’s their favorite of the Border Trilogy

Based on some cursory research it seems like the online people like Suttree best out of all his novels, which interested me, because I always see Blood Meridian referred to as his magnum opus. Seems like a critics vs audience score situation to me. I’m excited to read Suttree. Debating whether to read The Road before or after Suttree. I’m going to finish the border trilogy first and then decide I guess.

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Debating whether to read The Road before or after Suttree.

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I'd pick Suttree for sure. Cities of the Plain and The Road are both pretty relentlessly grim, Suttree at least has some humor and mixes things up a lot more.

I'm not sure it is the "best" though it is my favorite of his. I'd just find something less relentlessly negative between your reading of Cities on the Plain and The Road. No Country for Old Men would be good, and The Orchard Keeper would be fine. Or something by another author. No Country was my first Cormac book. I knew nothing about him and had low expectations since it was a Hollywood movie. I loved it and have been down that rabbit hole since. NCFOM is my favorite road trip listen, have done that many times.