read with us: a book that intimidates us

Well, this is either incredibly easy or incredibly sad. Or both. Val is the only one of us who even attempted a book this month. She's been pretty anxious for me to post about it, too. See our conversation from earlier today:

Next month should be easier (what were we thinking, choosing an intimidating book for the month that school starts???)—our category is a book that's been banned. Practically everything has been banned by someone at some time, so surely we can all find something. In fact, Mom discovered today that Green Eggs & Ham was once banned, so I'm gonna keep that one in my back pocket in case I need something super easy. (See all of our previous recaps here.)

Since no one else has anything to say this month, I'll let Val take it from here.

Val says: For this month’s category, a book that intimidates you, I chose Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.  This book has been on my To Be Read list for a couple of years, ever since a coworker mentioned that he considers it to be the Great American Novel.  This book is intimidating in its length – the copy I read clocked in at 821 pages.  This book was SO much more engaging than I thought it would be – for the first 50-100 pages, I was worried that I would be bored, and that the book would be a chore to get through.  This could not have been more wrong.  Around page 200, things really picked up, and from there on, I was captivated to the end.

The general plot is that two former Texas rangers decide to do their first ever cattle drive from South Texas to Northern Montana – basically traveling the entire length of the country.  Adventures ensue.  The book is set in 1876 (according to Wikipedia – I knew it was 1800’s post-Civil War, but didn’t notice if it actually said what year it was), so the West is still very much Wild. Also, a word of caution – because this is set in the old west, prostitution and violence were pretty much the order of the day. There was only once scene where I would call the violence graphic, but there is a fair amount of killing, and many of the characters are rough around the edges.  So maybe consider that if you’re deciding if this book is for you.  Personally, I am SO glad I read it and am strongly considering reading the other books in the series (Lonesome Dove was written first but is third chronologically). 5 stars.

Have you read Lonesome Dove? If so, what did you think?