"The Road," by Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy is know for his haunting depictions of the American West. Many of his fictions take place on the border of the United States and Mexico in the parched desert lands of Southern California and Arizona. 

The Road takes place in a post-apocalyptic world that has been devastated by a nuclear explosion. The protagonists are a father and son who only have each other to rely on in this forbidding environment. Their struggle for survival see them grapple against the tedium of existing in a vacuum and the horror of encountering the desperate survivors who exist in this world. 

I  would recommend this for older teen readers as some of the events can be upsetting; McCarthy evokes ultra-realistic dialogue/setting so caution is advised. However, his masterful, terse diction moves the novel along at a frightening pace and I am certainly going to seek out another of his works for a read in the near future!