This really should've been a four-star book.

There is so much that has stuck with me in the weeks since it's been read: Ruth's beautiful vulnerability, the depth of disparaging competitiveness between Jacy and her mother, the protective love of Sam the Lion for Billy, and Billy's sweeping through the town, like there exists some prayer of cleaning the place up. Even the town itself, its bleak streets, sucking the life out of anyone fool enough to live there...

What didn't stick with me about this book? The names (or an ounce of caring for that matter) of the main characters. Wait, I just looked them up: Sonny and Duane. That's right. I remember now.

Chronic hard-ons and complete lack of common sense really are a bad mix. Really. And after two hundred or so pages, it becomes laborious. Good thing this book was short. I know, I know Sonny does manage to pull out a few glaring moments of humanity, but because he rarely seems to do anything with what little heart he has, it just kinda makes him seem spineless.

So, because of this, I found myself between the forays into bovine gang-bangs and trysts with cheap prostitutes, thinking and wanting more of the ancillary characters. And that right there is the knife that cuts right to the crux of my feelings after reading this book: utter disappointment.

Damn you, Larry McMurtry. I wanted to like this so much.