Reviews for High Graders

The average rating for High Graders based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-03-03 00:00:00 David Hein Road trip read. I could be all snobby, and make it clear this was my husband's pick. However, with each L'Amour book I read, my appreciation for his writing grows. In the same way I enjoy the Britishisms of the cozy English novel, L'Amour offers western aphorisms and axioms that delight the ear. I can't remember even one (the down side of audio).

Review # 2 was written on 2020-02-13 00:00:00 Antoine May This is only my second western, and I read both this year, but judging from the other reviews I read, I wasn’t alone in feeling like there were TOO MANY DAMNED CHARACTERS in this book to deal with. Luckily, only a handful are important. But they are all treated like they are significant upon introduction, and it seems like L’amour was going through some growing pains writing this one, maybe trying to write a mystery as others have hypothesized. It gave the impression that this was a sequel and I somehow missed the importance of all of the characters because I hadn’t read the previous novel. But I think this is a one-off, so I don’t know what the deal was. So why four stars? I really like this genre. I like the setting. I like the ideas about tracking. I like the lingo. I’m learning shit, and it is fun to learn things without it feeling like I’m learning. It is nice to see the shreds of honor diminishing in the west, being replaced by law (kind of a chicken or the egg situation. Did law replace honor or did honor diminishing necessitate law?) There is a lot of isolation in this book. The protagonist spends a lot of time by himself. There’s something peaceful about that. Anyway, I’m going to give a few of his best a shot. Maybe my rating will change over time, but right now this was a good western, despite its flaws. And the call back in that final line was pretty sweet.