need to re-read

I read this because Zane Grey was my paternal grandfather's favorite writer. Or so I'm told. He passed away before I was born and I thought that maybe I could connect with him a little by reading a book he loved. I read somewhere that Riders of the Purple Sage was the western that established many of the tropes used in subsequent western novels and movies.

Mormon men are the bad guys in this novel, specifically the Mormon elders. Mormon women are long suffering and the spirited ones are marked to be "broken." Good men are the ones who treat animals, women, and children with kindness and respect. There are some beautiful scenes, some hokey scenes, and lots of problems that could have been avoided had people spoken up sooner, but, overall, I think it's a good story that explores the abuse of power and religion. I just don't know if many modern readers would have the patience to read it through unless they're interested in western literature.

DISCLAIMER: I ONLY read this book because of the 2020 PopSugar Reading Challenge category of "A Western". I do not like the genre as a whole. So when this category came up I picked the author because, as a life long M*A*S*H* the TV show fan, Col. Potter read Zane Grey all the time. So on a trip to a used book store I picked this book up.

So... I did not DISLIKE this book but I can't say I liked it either. Granted, I floated between reading the paperback and listening to the audio, depending on where I was. This book was full of all the tropes we associate with a western novel... ranchers and ranch hands, a single woman running her ranch alone struggling to not be bullied into wedding a town bigwig so he can have her land and fortune, a mysterious one name stranger (riding a blind horse), comes seeking revenge and ends up staying and helping the lady, lady and stranger fall in love and adopt an unwanted orphan child...

But then remembering this book was originally published in 1912... it may have been Zane Grey who helped establish all these tropes.

My biggest issues was actually with the editing of the audiobook. There were no pauses between the end of a chapter and the beginning of the next... heck they didn't wait for the reader to finish pronouncing the final word of the chapter before the next chapter began.

Would I recommend this book... I guess... if you like westerns. But I am not going to try to find book two in this apparent duology, let alone rush out to read anything else in this genre.

Fun in general. Pretty musty, but that's sort of the point in reading Zane Grey in 2022. When it's good it's great, and when it's bad it's pretty abysmal. Repetitive, depending on how you feel about sage and it's being described.

For me, this book was a bit hard to get through. Even though there are definitely some action-heavy moments and it follows the traditional arc of pulp fiction, it relies very heavily descriptions of nature, which, in my opinion, are somewhat difficult to get through. Moreover, many of the characters are very poorly developed / reflect traditional gender roles. Overall, the plot is good, I just personally wasn't a fan of the writing style.

I definitely enjoyed this more at the beginning than the end. By the end, the descriptions of noble and innocent women with fluttering hearts was too much for me. I kept on with it though because I was fascinated by the premise and initial focus on a female protagonist. If only the author had stayed focused on her than shifting the story mostly to the men fawning over her.

Part of my giving this book 5 stars is the fact that I listened to the audio version. I loved the reader, his way with voices, and his very Western rhythms. Fun story, too.