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Why do the man and boy keeps saying that they hold/bring the fire? Do they mean the boy? or do they mean they still have the fire for life?

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Why does he always repeat what the boy says?

I'm starting to question whether or not the book will keep me entertained because there hasn't been much action and it is pretty predictable so far. The same thing keeps happening; they get food. they run out of food. they starve for a few days. They run across an abandoned house and find more food. then they run out of food and so on.

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That was a very sad part, and even though the entire book is written in a sort of glum tone, this part was especially disturbing. Children of the boy's age should NOT be thinking like that, and it shows how much gruesome horror the child has been exposed to.

Why did the man leave the picture? Wouldn't he want to remember his wife? Throwing it away/leaving it there might just keep reminding of her just as it did here.

The baby in the belly must be the little boy because he has no knowledge of the life before the apocalypse. Also, the boy seems to be 7 or 8 years old. He must have been born during the event that changed the world.

I'm kind of dissappointed that we never got to find out what exactly happened to the world. We were given hints and clues but we weren't given an explanation.

I encountered quite a few words that I knew were not words in real life. This was annoying because most of the time they weren't described too well so it was up to the reader's imagination to determine what the author was referring to.

The flashback was confusing - I didn't realize it was a flashback at first

Throughout the entire book I was trying to figure out what had happened to the world that caused the disaster. The reason why the world ended was not very specific in the novel. I think this is because the author did not think it was too relevant to the story.

Because of all the ash and grayness the man mentions I kind of think that the world ended because of something to do with all the industry and the machinery

When the man and women are in the room with the flashback, the man says that they saw the distant cities burn. In Alas, Babylon, far cities burned because of nuclear weapons. Perhaps the author is hinting at the same thing happening here - a nuclear catastrophe

The stuff described in the book are charred and burnt to ashes so something must have happened and happened fast. Like a nuclear bomb.

They all stopped at exactly a certain time; this means that whatever happened happened fast.

I thought it was kind of silly that a man who has been following the boy and man pops out of nowhere to help the boy. Even though it gives a somewhat happy ending to the novel I thought it could have been better.

The boy's random acts of kindness seemed to have ended up helping him at the end. He had his childlike innocence that led him to try and help/care for others, and at the end he found someone to care for him.

The opening passages demonstrated outstanding imagery and detail.

I think the message is the relationship between the father and son, and how the father instills a sense of hope into his son even though the father himself has lost hope.

What's the bravest thing you did?
Getting up this morning

Shows how much man has lost hope, but goes on to saying that he didn't mean what he said.

Standing with his suitcase like an orphan waiting for a bus