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Summary: funny and bright
Review: Larry McMurtry never gets old. This book is funny and bright, a very light read after Lonesome Dove and Streets of Loredo have taken it all out of you. I love the characters, how they flow together, how they work so well off of one another. It has all the elements of delightful humor without being dumb. When your reading this book, your there, you can see it happening in all the ways the Mr. McMurtry describes. You want to be part of it all, and in a way you really are.
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Summary: A Great Western Yarn
Review: Larry McMurtry returns to the style that made "Lonesome Dove" a huge hit. This time, we observe the American West through the eyes of 15-year old Shay Cecil. The narrative skillfully blends a sense of wonder, admiration and innocence as a boy begins the road to manhood in a sometimes brutal, unforgiving environment. This is one of those books that you simply can't put down.
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Summary: Where's the story?
Review: McMurtry is the master of character development. His characters are always fresh, unique, likeable in their contrariness. In this regard, "Boone's Lick" succeeds. Shay, Seth, Mary Margaret, Rosie, Charlie -- colorful to the bone!It would really be nice though if his characters had a story. Larry, you left something out here. Maybe "Lonesome Dove" is too much to live up to. So much potential, but no plot development. Bummer.
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Summary: McMurtry's massacre
Review: mcMurtry simply writes too many books. You will find no more passionate defender of his great books (Lonesome Dove, Terms of Endearment)but like the little girl, when he is good, he is very good, and when he is bad he is awful. He has never been more awful than in Boone's lick. Too bad, Larry, but you just write too many books. Sometimes it work out, this time...
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Summary: audio version brought to life by will patton
Review: McMurtry writes a relationship story set in the West. I was amazed that the reader, Will Patton, could sound so different for each voice. The NY Times book reviewer isn't sure why the story was told through the eyes of a fifteen-year-old boy. Mr. Patton's vocal portrayal of young Shay removes all doubt that he is the one to tell the story. I downloaded the book from Audible.com. Everyone who drives a car or goes to exercise should consider using this wonderful service.
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Summary: Great Western Adventure Story
Review: McMurtry's latest story is a return to what he does best; tell good western tales. Told from the perspective of fifteen-year-old Shay Cecil, this story is about a family's adventure from Missouri to Wyoming a few years following the Civil War. The Cecil family is poor and they barely make ends meet while living in a poor town called Boone's Lick, Missouri. Shay's father had gone west and has failed to return after 14 months. This prompts Shay's mother to pack up the family and head west to see what is holding him up. Their journey isn't without danger. Raids by warmongering Indians, wild animals and the weather pose constant threats as the Cecil family goes through Kansas and Nebraska. Along the way, they pick up several colorful characters that help the family journey westward. When the family finally reaches the forts of Wyoming and their father, they realize that their father is living a double life, which poses turmoil to Shay and his mother. McMurtry's ability to tell a solid western tale is alive and well. While the book doesn't have the depth of Lonesome Dove, it is very entertaining. I found it very hard to put down and in fact I read it in a day. While some of the events that occur left me feeling skeptical about their chances of happening, McMurtry's ability to make the reader care for his characters make this book work. Fans of McMurtry will not be disappointed.
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Summary: An enjoyable read
Review: No one writes a better Western Novel than Larry McMurtry. While this book does not match Lonesome Dove, it shows that he still has what it takes when it comes to a story about the old West. He can take simple situations and weave an interesting story with characters you can't help but fully visualize in your mind. My main complaint is that the story was too short. I think he could have gone deeper into the lives of many of the family members. Nonetheless, when you finish this book you'll have met a really unusual bunch of people. If you like McMurtry, I'm sure you'll enjoy this one.
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Summary: A disappointment
Review: Simon and Schuster certainly hyperbolize on the "Boone's Lick" book jackets when they call their million-dollar author's new work a "perfect western tale, and a moving love story," and "vintage McMurtry." The editors also call attention to Mr. McMurtry's "brilliant character portraits" and end by naming it "one of McMurtry's richest works of fiction to date." Alas, it is all bunk. In reality, Boone's newest novel combines hastily drawn stereotyped characters participating in a predictable trek to the West on a rather dubious mission. Very little in this novel rings true. After reading much of Mr. McMurty's work, including the brilliant "Lonesome Dove" and "Cadillac Jack," I was disappointed with the hasty writing, the lack of style, the dullness of the dialogue, and the cliches of the plot and the characterization. Characters who should be interesting - the mother, her prostitute half-sister, and the eccentric priest Father Villy - all emerge as under-developed and two-dimensional, rather boring, and frequently tedious. I am afraid Mr. Murtry word-processed this book in a hurry, with a view, perhaps, to a major Hollywood deal or a quick Disney television spectacular on Sunday night. All the cliches are there to inspire the movie-going or television-watching public: the lure and danger of the West, unpredictable Indians, a harsh and indomitable heroine, and a pilgrimage into the hazardous American West, peopled with eccentrics and villains. He even mixes in dreary portraits of "Wild" Bill Hickok and Colonel Fetterman to give the novel historical perspective. Larry McMurtry can do much better than this. I would recommend you ... and breeze through it in a few hours. It is light, tedious reading and very uncharacteristic of Larry McMurtry's work.
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Summary: Thank goodness for Larry McMurtry!
Review: There's nothing better than a good Western from Larry McMurtry. It's hard not to compare "Boone's Lick" to "Lonesome Dove" - both novels are named after small, depressed post-Civil War towns and evolve into journeys across the Western frontier. However, while "Lonesome Dove" was a grand epic, "Boone's Lick" is more of a novella. It follows the fates of the Cecil family - mother Mary Margaret, Uncle Seth, narrator Shay, dim-witted brother GT and assorted characters they meet along the way - as they set off across the Oregon trail to find their wayward patriarch. As always, McMurtry's characters are uniquely memorable, and he effortlessly conveys both the grandeur and the challenges of the West. McMurtry's realism is so comprehensive that he even weaves real historical characters and events into his narrative. The story itself is charming - I read it effortlessly in one sitting.
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Summary: Ranks well down on McMurtry's novels
Review: This book carries on with McMurtry's Western format: lots of crusty and unpredictable characters, strong men and women wandering across the plains. The difference here is that the plot is straight-line and boring. All those wonderful side stories that the author has woven into past books are missing. I kept waiting for a surprise. There was none.
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