Book Review: Lonesome Dove

Well folks, on Friday I finally finished Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry.  All I can say is...wow!  What an incredible story.  The book started out pretty rough.  It was extremely slow and I had to work hard to keep my interest.  However, I feel as though those first boring 100 pages were completely necessary, to set the scene for the next 845.  

The book is begins in the dusty little "town" of Lonesome Dove, Texas, right on the Mexican border.  This is a true cowboy book, and the story is centered around two former Texas rangers, Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call.  Now that their rangering days are over, Gus and Call deal in horses and cattle.  The adventure begins when the duo decide to take three thousand cattle up to Montana to settle. 

I'm not usually one for cowboy stories, but this one blew me away.  The journey is difficult and claims several lives.  I have not cried this much while reading a book in a long time.  The book is full of powerful characters and emotion, and I was blown away by the storytelling and its affect on me.  

I don't think I'm doing a very good job of selling this book - or even properly explaining what it is about, because to be honest, the storyline is far too complex to summarize decently.  As previously mentioned, Lonesome Dove is lengthy - my copy was 945 pages - but I whipped through it.  On Friday, I sat down and read the last 400 pages in no time - I literally could not put it down.  

Please, read this book.