Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - Lonesome Dove

Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

27 reviews

noonjinx's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This is certainly an epic. McMurtry spends 300 pages introducing his characters and then another 600 weaving their stories in and out of a 3000 mile cattle drive from Texas to Montana.

McMurtry obviously loves his subject: the book is full of western tropes but he manages to undermine the myths by showing how harsh and unforgiving frontier life was, and how survival depended on luck as much as judgement and skill.

The action is nicely paced. The characters are all deep, beautifully drawn and uniquely flawed, so you end up loving and admiring them but wanting to slap some sense into them too. The book is funny as well as exciting and sad. It’s worth reading for Gus’ hilarious monologues alone.

Some of the plot lines depend heavily on coincidence. Characters run into each other all the time and at one point McMurtry tries to explain this away by telling us there was only one road. The last few chapters are tragic and pretty bleak, but worse than that, the introspection goes on too long and gets a little boring.

I also wish the author had been a little braver in his myth busting. There’s a lot of frontier justice in this book and McMurtry can’t help justifying every lynching. I think it would have been more interesting and Captan Call had occasionally got the wrong guy.

Still a great book to read.

Content Warnings

shirtypantser's review against another edition

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adventurous reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

martyrdomx5's review

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adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

skitch41's review

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adventurous challenging dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Content Warnings

krysley's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

All right, a warning for anyone who reads the 2010 Simon & Schuster edition: do not read the preface unless you want spoilers for the rest of the books!

Now that that's out of the way: I loved this book so much.

Honestly, it was more than I ever expected it to be and brought out all the emotions, from anger and despair to heartbroken. These characters live in my head rent free and I'm glad to share the space with them. This book simply captivated me. Actually, it was more than that - I wanted to nerd out over this book, write a paper about the female characters and how McMurtry handled each one, and discuss every little nuance. It has been a long time since a book has effected me in such a way and I can't wait to read this again.

For a book written in 1985 about the 1870s, I was expecting heaps of misogyny, racism, and all the other hateful things that often spawn from those time periods combining. But . . . that wasn't what I got. Yes, there was misogyny and racism, but it was in the context of the time period (that didn't stop me from angrily crossing out the n-word in my personal copy every time I read it - some things I don't need to read over and over).

Content Warnings