Rating: 
Summary: Ugh!
Review: I'm not commenting on the book, because I put this book down after the first page. Why? It would be nice if I could read the book clearly. As in, bloody quotation marks, commas, little details such as that. No, that wouldn't be hip and cool, that would be conforming to this silly tradition of (can you believe it?) legible writing. Oy vey.
Rating:
Summary: Inconsistent with reason or logic or common sense
Review: The center stage characters in this book are suppose to be ages 17 and 16. But they walk, talk and
think like worldly-wise old men. Totally unrealistic. I have never known nor even heard of a 16 y/o
that sophisticated, that surefooted. You don't see full grown adults that cool and steadfast for christ
sakes! Especially when faced with death in a Mexican prison like these two where. Especially after
being beaten to a bloody pulp everyday for
weeks on end, broken noses, jaw, broke out teeth, then stabbed! Come on! But old (young) John
Grady takes it all in his stride, and goes back for more (the girl).Given their limited life experiences and schooling their is no way they could of accumulated such a
wide vocabulary and intellection. John Grady Cole's mom sells the ranch in TX so John (age 16) decides to ride his horse to Mexico.
His parents (divorced) are each in their own little world which doesn't include John so he is on his
own. His best friend Rawlins comes along. Rawlins father/mother seems to share the same total lack
of concern for their son as John's parents cuz ain't nobody come a looking for em. Again, totally
unbelievable cuz like I said these are two wise and wonderful kids. The type of child every parent
dreams of having. 50 year old minds in 16 y/o bodies. What more could you ask for? No muss no
fuss. Their trip is uneventful until Blevins a 14 y/o boy joins them. And what's with all this spitting? They didn't chew tobacco or anything but every time they opened
their bloody mouths to speak they "spat" first. Ridiculous How this won the National Book Award in 1992 and why all the good reviews here is beyond me.
Rating: 
Summary: Long lost cowboys
Review: Cormac McCarthy's stunning novel is a tribute to the men of another, lost age. His prose complements the sparse landscape of Mexico and embodies the quiet fortitude of the men of the Old West.
Rating: 
Summary: Lean and spare
Review: Like many readers, this much-heralded book has been my first encounter with the writing of Cormac McCarty. I enjoyed the novel, as narrated by Frank Muller, but I am going to walk, not necessarily run, to pick up the remaining volumes of McCarthy's "border trilogy" since this novel left me wanting a little more. The tale is simple- John Grady Cole, a 16 year old Texan, leaves his home when the family decides to sell their marginally-profitable cattle ranch. He sets off for Mexico with his buddy Lacey Rawlins, with little more than the clothes on their back and a couple of sound horses. Along the way they encounter the younger, boastful runaway Jimmy Blevins, who is a great marksman but is terrified of lightning, and Blevins and his beautiful Bay mare tag along with dire consequences. Lacey and Cole end up at a hacienda in Mexico where their hard work and considerable skills in the horse arena earn them the respect of the ranch, and where Cole falls in love with the owner's beautiful daughter. Although I won't give away any more of the plot, at times there is little plot to give away, as McCarthy often spends pages describing the sparse, dusty landscape or recounting the beans and tortillas eaten by our heroes seemingly at every meal. The narration here by Muller is excellent, as he convincingly changes voices for every character and appears to speak in a convincing Mexican accent for the non-gringo characters. This was one of my pet peeves however, since there are fairly long dialogues in Spanish, which were largely lost on me with my mostly-forgotten, high school grade Spanish ability. Also, Cole seems almost supernaturally cool and brave for a 16 year old kid, especially given the circumstances in which he is thrust by the author. Finally, while we hear minute details about landscape, meals, care and feeding of the horses, etc. throughout the novel, at times seemingly relevant details are left out. What happened to Cole's father for example? It seems like Cole, at the end of the novel, didn't deem it important enough to ask, as he was more interested in the welfare of the poor former employees of his family's ranch. McCarthy can definitely tell a story, and I have heard that Blood Meridian is one of the best American novels of the past twenty years, but I suspect All the Pretty Horses is not necessarily his best work. I rate it a generous 4 stars, 3 1/2 if they'd let me.
Rating:
Summary: Tough but rewarding
Review: McCarthy is a bit tough to read. It isn't a leasurly book that you'd want to read while on vacation. I found it tough to follow at first, mostly because there are no quotation marks for when the character speaks. As the story progresses, though, the text becomes more comfortable and, in the end, the book is rewarding.
Rating: 
Summary: All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Review: This is a modern western (1949). Young 16-year old John Grady Cole has become the lost generation of the Grady family with his grandfather's death. He hoped to remain on the family's East Texas ranch and work cattle and horses, but his parents problems cause the ranch to be sold and he is on his own. He and his friend, Rawlins, take off for Mexico hoping to be cowboys on a ranch there. On the way, they are joined by a younger boy, Blivens, who has a great horse, is fast with a gun and very rebellious--the instigation of much trouble for John Grady and Rawlins. Once in Mexico, they lose young Blevins and eventually locate on a ranch where they are happy. John Grady gets involved with the rancher's daughter (Of course, this is not an approved relationship.) and eventually, he and his friend are turned over to police who take them to prison where they again meet up with their nemesis, Blivens. This book is beautifully written with much vivid description. Much time is spent describing emotions of various characters, and McCarthy aptly describes the good and kindly poor Mexicans as well as the cruel and evil ones with a little authority. He has the Mexicans speak in Spanish, which John Grady understands, but often, the Spanish passages are so long that the non-Spanish speaking reader cannot make sense of what is being said. I came away feeling depressed and not sure of exactly what was happening in too many places.
Rating:
Summary: Slow going
Review: It's not that I didn't enjoy the story, but I feel it could have been told in 1/2 the words. It just didn't keep my attention and took about a month of forcing myself to stay into it to finish. Also, if you don't know Spanish, you may want to keep a dictionary handy. It could be frustrating otherwise.
Rating:
Summary: I love it!!!!!
Review: I loved this book from beginning to end. What I was expecting to happen didn't happen at all nor did it end how I wanted it to. However, given the time period and circumstances, I am very pleased with the author's ending. The author did a great job portraying everything and he had very good descriptiveness. This book deserves 5-stars. Nice Job Cormac McCarthy!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Story but a Difficult Read
Review: Every professional critic lauded this book as a great modern day western classic and perhaps it is. I was looking forward to reading this acclaimed novel by Cormac McCarthy, but found the going extremely difficult on a number of counts. Some of the sentences are over half a page long so that by the time you reach the end, the beginning has faded into the distant past. The absence of inverted commas to denote the spoken word was hard to get used to, often requiring a revisit to check if the passage just read was conversation or narrative. The final obstacle for me, even though it helped to conjure up the surroundings, was the frequent use of Spanish. Now for the positives. The story has a good plot with two charismatic leading characters who head off into a foreign land in search of freedom, but who discover adventure, romance, violence, hardship and tragedy along the way. The descriptions of the mountains, plains, storms and rivers of Mexico are excellent, so the atmosphere of that land is always floating there alongside the developing story. The love scenes and the prison scenes provide contrasting moments of relaxation and tension for the reader. Reading is a wonderful way to discover new words and even though it is purely imaginative, the word "blivet" on page 46 of the paperback edition, is now part of my vocabulary, albeit changed to suit the person with whom I am talking. "All the Pretty Horses" has only recently been released as a movie and I would expect this to be one of those very rare exceptions where the movie is better than the book. I look forward to finding out.
Rating:
Summary: A unique "coming-of-age" story
Review: "All the Pretty Horses" is without a doubt one of the most impressive novels I've ever read. To me, more than anything else it's the coming of age of one John Grady Cole. A few years after WWII Cole decides to ride down from his Texas home to Mexico along with his friend Lacey Rawlins. Cole is a cowboy at heart, but circumstances have deprived him of his intended livelihood. His grandfather, the owner of a large ranch, has just died, but his mother (his grandfather's heir) does not want a thing to do with the ranch, and she arranges to sell it - lock stock and barrel. And since Cole is underage there's not a thing he can do about it. So...
What follows is Cole's and Rawlins' odyssey in Mexico, and what an odyssey it is. They find work at a ranch, where Cole falls in love with the beautiful Alejandra. But because of events that occurred on the way to the ranch, their love is doomed and Cole and Rawlins learn some very hard lessons.
McCarthy's writing style is rather unique; you need to get used to it. But once you do the story flows very naturally and you develop a feel for all the characters in the story - except for Jimmy Blevins, who I never quite got a handle on. He was much more believable in the movie than in the book; I suppose because I had an actual person to look at instead of someone to just picture in my mind.
The only real complaint I have with this novel is that McCarthy seems to assume that the reader has a working knowledge of Spanish. I don't, and I'm only assuming that I interpreted certain Spanish conversations correctly. I would have benefitted from some kind of translation - whether in an index, in footnotes, or in some other form.
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