macieslater 's review for:

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

4.0

adventurous dark emotional funny informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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I had very high hopes for this book due to the bountiful amount of praise that I heard, and I especially wanted to read it after taking my Wild Wests class this past semester. For the reasons that people said they like it, I absolutely agree -- you really grow to know and care about the characters, and I found myself having the strongest opinions about fictional people that I have had in a while. While some of this could be attributed to the sheer length of the novel, it is also in the way that McMurtry very masterfully writes about the actions, thoughts, and points of view of the characters. The quick shifts in POV were very unlike probably any other book I've read, which at first was a bit whiplash-like but overall I think helped to really flesh out the characters and how they all behaved in such dire situations. Obviously, the very problematic and stereotypical depiction of blood-thirsty Native Americans took me out of the novel a fair amount, as it was impossible to overlook. I don't expect a book like this to be progressive, per se, but it was aggressive in its portrayal. There was a lot of cognitive dissonance that I experienced in wanting to root for the characters I had grown to know and love as they were quite literally being colonists. Probably because of this, I didn't have that *feeling* that I've heard others use to describe their love of this book, and that I have felt with other novels. I can absolutely appreciate its merits, and do not regret that it ate up about half of my summer.