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Title: 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.
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