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idahovic 's review for:
Riders of the Purple Sage
by Zane Grey
Once again a book has surprised me by not being what I expected at all. I haven't read many westerns so I wasn't sure what I was getting into.
Grey does a wonderful job describing Western America's scenic wonders. I lived in the West my entire 63 years and his descriptions of the landscape, so very different than where I live now in Idaho, make it easy to picture his locales.
I did not expect the book to be a romance in addition to a western and a bit of a thriller a well. Grey's dialog is not his strong point. Characters often speak in a stilted manner that does not reflect natural speech. The character development of our heroes' foes is nearly non-existent.
And I did not expect the hostility the author seems to have toward the Mormons (who are the bad guys in the novel). The occasional racism and misogyny wasn't too heavy to make the book unreadable but it is there.
Overall, the book was ok. But in my future Western reading I'll read more modern authors.
Grey does a wonderful job describing Western America's scenic wonders. I lived in the West my entire 63 years and his descriptions of the landscape, so very different than where I live now in Idaho, make it easy to picture his locales.
I did not expect the book to be a romance in addition to a western and a bit of a thriller a well. Grey's dialog is not his strong point. Characters often speak in a stilted manner that does not reflect natural speech. The character development of our heroes' foes is nearly non-existent.
And I did not expect the hostility the author seems to have toward the Mormons (who are the bad guys in the novel). The occasional racism and misogyny wasn't too heavy to make the book unreadable but it is there.
Overall, the book was ok. But in my future Western reading I'll read more modern authors.