Sarah B's Reviews > Riders of the Purple Sage

Although I had loved the short story, Tappan's Burro by Zane Grey, I really didn't like this novel very much at all and my interest had fizzled out before the end. I just thought there were too many things wrong with it. For one I had thought the characters had talked in a very unusual manner, especially Jane and Lassiter. People don't actually talk that way. And I realize it was written long ago but I don't think they talked that way back then either. It's like they were constantly spilling out all of the deep thoughts and feelings to other people. It was just too weird to read and therefore I couldn't get into it. It seemed too fake!

This is the story of a rich woman named Jane. She's a Mormon but she's single. The Mormon community wants to force her to marry some guy and she doesn't want to...and so they start playing nasty tricks on her like stealing her cattle. Jane also likes taking care of the local Gentiles and they don't like that either. Then two other men enter the story: Lassiter and Venters.

I also had problems with Jane... everyone was saying how strong and willful she was but she only seemed to be throwing herself at some guy. The parts of the book with her were incredibly boring as it was like a romance! I want to read an adventure story, not romance. There was no action, fist fights, gun fights, etc or if there was it was very minor. Westerns are supposed to be adventure stories with lots of action or that's what I had thought. The parts with Jane would put you to sleep!

And the amount of crooked stuff going on in here against Jane was over the top. It puts a very bad light on Mormons. And the ongoing exploits against her was just depressing. It just continued on and on...there's no suspense or sense of danger. Lots of the crooked stuff is seen from a great distance.

The bits of the book I liked the best was the chapters with Venters and Bess, with them exploring the canyon. At least that was a bit interesting! I just loved all of the descriptions of nature in here. Those parts were the best...but I really can't approve of Venters as a character either because he had left and abondoned his steed in favor of a girl. And then poor Wrangle ended up horribly matted! I've seen in person horses with matted manes and tails...it's awful. Often if it's bad enough the hair has to be cut off as there's no way to really untangle the horrid matts. And my opinion is if someone treats an animal this way they can do it to a person too. He never even checked on Wrangle or anything... ghastly!!

I also feel the problems in the book weren't really solved..and the end is confusing.