Rating: 
Summary: Vexed in Maine
Review: "Boone's Lick" holds a lot of promise but the reader will come away vexed for many reasons. Vexed a word, he also used until I wanted to scream in Ned and Zeke, used sparingly in this book. To me it turned out to be a three part story idea. None of the characters were ever developed. In Lonesome Dove you learned new things, about all of the numerous characters, in each chapter. Larry never repeated himself. He wrote at length of the difficulties of crossing the wide open spaces. When they reached their destinations I was equally exhausted. You smelled the blood when someone was wounded as it dried and rotted on their clothes. Their purpose for crossing monumental. Larry compressed the story until it almost had no life left in it. I had a crazy thought that someone ghosted the book. A thought I don't want to cling to. His publisher should have sent the manuscript back demanding a total rewrite. Personally I would like to have my money back.I didn't buy the book through Amazon. I will not buy another of his books unless I examine it thoroughly. Larry is too talented to rest on his laurels.
Rating: 
Summary: Boone's Lick
Review: A BIG disappointment. It's not much more than an expanded outline for a made-for-TV movie (287 large print & wide margin pages). I made myself finish it only because I had $24 invested in it and wanted to see if it was bad all the way through as it was in the beginning. It was! It has good potential for the development of memorable characters, but McMurtry didn't come through as he usually does. The story was boring and I really didn't care if the Cecil family made it to Wyoming or not. Bottom line: I felt this was presented to the American public as a commercial venture to entice the Christmas shoppers to spend some more of their money and to fill the pockets of the publishers and McMurtry. I'm sorry I fell for their tactics and I am VERY disappointed that McMurtry would present such a weak piece of work to his loving readers!
Rating: 
Summary: Eagerly anticipated
Review: A great fan of Larry McMurtry, I couldn't wait to read his latest work of fiction. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with Boone's Lick. The well developed characters and rich dialog so typical of a McMurtry western are not present in Boone's Lick. The characters are flat and have a tendency to abruptly disappear before significantly enhancing the story.
Rating: 
Summary: Short but sweet
Review: As a Larry McMurtry fan, I found Boone's Lick a little short but still well worth the read. Though lighter than his usual fare, I loved the characters and wished I could have spent more time with them. Hopefully he'll resurrect them in a sequel. I've never been disappointed with a McMurtry western and look forward to the next.
Rating:
Summary: Can't recommend it
Review: Boone's Lick held my interest long enough to finish reading it but if it was twice as thick I probably would have given up. The book seems to be many short stories strung together with only tenuous cohesion. None of the stories develop into anything all that interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Can't recommend it
Review: Boone's Lick held my interest long enough to finish reading it but if it was twice as thick I probably would have given up. The book seems to be many short stories strung together with only tenuous cohesion. None of the stories develop into anything all that interesting.
Rating:
Summary: The Most Bizarre Western
Review: Good God, Larry McMurtry has bloodied up the West again with a story I couldn't put down. After the Civil War Mary Margaret Cecil packs up her Missouri family to find her husband who is in Wyoming freighting for the Army. This is undoubtedly the most bizarre Western that has ever been written.Unlike other novels of the adventuresome travelers who went toward a Western star to search for treasures, the Cecils travel across an unmarked wilderness in search of the husband of Mary Margaret. Not content with a lazy wagon trip, McMurtry has thrown in the most dysfunctional bunch of people who ever followed the setting sun. A priest who swims naked across the Missouri River, Indians who are the most flea bitten of any of the savages, accompanied by a brother-in-law who worships the ground she walks on, Mary Margaret ain't the shrinking violet that you usually meet along the route to the Big Sky Country where mountains meet the sky. And then if murdering Indians aren't enough, wait until you read about Mary Margaret finding out about her husband's wives numbers one and two. Beware, this isn't a John Wayne Western where women are women and men are men. This is a Western where one hell'uv a scorned wife destroys the myths of the Western heroes, and along her journeys, she makes even the cruel Indians cower down in fright. Luther Butler http:/www.erath.net/butler/
Rating:
Summary: Boone's Lick
Review: Having read and very much enjoyed Lonesome Dove, I was disappointed by Boone's Lick. It's the story of Shay, who travels with his mother, uncle, and assorted other relatives and followers from Missouri to the West as part of his mother's attempt to locate her long-gone husband. The book has some of McMurtry's strengths: the humor, the clear, spare writing style, the appealing working-class characters (including the mules). But the plot is shallow, the characters are never really developed, and the end sudden. Overall, the book feels as if the author were just going through the motions; as if he were bored with the work. Mary Margaret and Seth, particularly, might have been interesting people, but the reader never gets to know them. I'd skip this in favor of McMurtry's more carefully written work.
Rating:
Summary: Boone's Lick
Review: I am a huge McMurtry fan, especially his westerns. The "Lonesome Dove" books were among my very favorites. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but "Boone's Lick" was a disappointment. It was too short, lacked the depth of character development that is normally so well done by McMurtry, and really did not seem to have much of a plot. The dialog was entertaining as usual, but there just seemed to be something missing. It does not rank among Mr. McMurtry's finest works.
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Summary: This book must have been rushed by a deadline...
Review: I bought the unabridged cassette tape version of this book, to keep me company on a long business trip in my car. I had visions of another Ned and Zeke, another book on tape that I treasure, from McMurtry. For the most part, being from the same part of the country the book is set, I enjoyed it...as I got to the sixth and final cassette tape, however, I became worried...how can this story end now???? And it did...just like he had run out of paper in his word processor, or ink, or ideas, or his advance....he sews the story up and ends it just when things are getting exciting. The book ends up like a book that was salvaged from manuscript form when the author died suddenly. Larry, I love your writing, but I want my money back for this one. You KNOW this wasn't ready to publish, yet you let your publisher go ahead and publish. Shame on you. When a writer begins to love his money more than his characters and his product, it's time to retire.
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