The novel “On the Road” is a cheap, skip-around glimpse of what the beat movement of the mid-1940s to early 1950s might have been like. I compare reading this work by Jack Kerouac to walking up to a house, peeking in through the mail slot by the front door, and seeing the foul, raunchy house party going on inside.

The sight innervates you. It feels incorrect and wrong that you are standing there watching that party at this moment. This may sound melodramatic, but it is how I remember feeling as I read the book.

This book and the characters inside it might make pretty much anyone from the 21st century cringe and feel wronged — or rather, anyone with common decency.

Let me introduce you to Dean Moriarty. He is the real meat of this story, considering our main character and narrator, Sal Paradise, is about as flat and undeveloped as a piece of paper. Contrarily, Dean is a potent, robust and impulsive man; Sal’s foil.

Together, the two men road trip across the United States, leaving an emotional wreckage in their wake. They attach themselves to women they find on the road, get them pregnant, and then leave within the hour to search for the next hot thing to objectify.

Our main characters drift about the confines of North America aimlessly as if they have no past or future. Just killing time. Both are drawn like moths to a flame to the shiny appeal of wandering.

There are a few times within the novel where Sal and Dean make it very clear that they are attracted to various underage girls that they come across on the road. Gross, right?

Moving on, the depiction of African Americans in “On the Road” is unsurprisingly inaccurate and racist. Writer James Baldwin reportedly loathed Jack Kerouac’s writing and was enraged by the portrayal of Black Americans in this work. Baldwin described it as “exotic” and “happy.” He felt it did not accurately represent the truth of the struggles his people face.

Despite all these criticisms, there was one event in this book that pleasantly surprised me. While Sal and Dean are on one of their many spontaneous road trips, they pick up a hitchhiker. This hitchhiker happens to be an openly gay man. The three men casually talk and hang out until eventually parting ways. Considering the time period this book was written in, this is out of the ordinary and pretty progressive. However, this is about the only positive note I have for “On the Road.”

Now, I want you to transport yourself back into my mail-slot metaphor from earlier. As you are looking through the chink in the house’s outer wall, you attract the attention of someone inside the party. They smile, several front teeth missing, and wave you inside.

You stand up, eyes wide. Before you can even think about moving to leave, the front door swings open. A long, rickety arm reaches out with ramshackle fingers. It nears your wrist, twitching with thin hairs sprouting out of the obvious pores. Its fingers grip you with an unexpected tight clench and draw you through the doorway. Into the party.

Be smart, run fast before the hand grabs you, too. Do not read “On the Road.”

Clara Christensen, 16, is in her third year of high school. Fortunately. She enjoys the clean breeze of spring and the smell of rain after it settles in the nooks and crannies of the soil. She thinks that people who have appendages amputated should be able to keep their lost bones, a sort of commemorative thing. Like when you shove a penny in one of those machines you find on vacation, and it comes out oval-shaped and branded, but you still want it.