Lonesome Dove

This book is like a stew. BEAR WITH ME PEOPLE! This is going somewhere.

Day 1 of stew: This stew is okay. It's stew - what do you want me to say? It's simple and it's filling.

Day 2 of stew: Sure, this stew isn't fancy. But I was working as a professional business lady all day and it's nice to be able to heat up a comforting bowl for dinner.

Day 3 of stew: This stew keeps getting better & better. All the flavors are coming together. Stew - you keep surprising me! I am glad I have a giant tub of you in the fridge.

Day 4: What a long day. I am glad I have you, Stew. You are coziness personified. You are like an old friend.

Day 5: STEW THERE IS ONLY ONE BOWL OF YOU LEFT! I'm not ready to say goodbye! At the beginning you felt like you would last forever...but I see now how short-sighted I was. *single tear*

Day 6: There is no more stew. RIP Stew. I'm sorry I took you for granted in the beginning. I could make you again, but it won't be the same as the first time. Goodbye. Goodbye...forever. *sobs*

Additional notes on Lonesome Dove that don't fit into a stew metaphor (believe me, I tried):

• Fantastic character names. Pea Eye! Newt! Dish! Soupy! Dang, now I feel like I probably could have worked those names into a stew metaphor. Lazy, Jane!
• The dialog is amazing enough to make you want to slip snippets of it into your own conversations. This will result in an uncomfortable silence when you're on a conference call at work with your New York office about the Q4 budget and you say, "I doubt it matters where you die...but it matters where you live."
• This is the type of novel that is rightly described as "epic," and an "opus." Epic & Opus would also be acceptable character names in a Larry McMurtry novel, I think.

5 grizzly bear fighting bulls out of 5.