All the Pretty Horses

by Cormac McCarthy

Paperback

English language

ISBN:: 9780679744399

(19 reviews)

All the Pretty Horses is a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992. Its romanticism (in contrast to the bleakness of McCarthy's earlier work) brought the writer much public attention. It was a bestseller, and it won both the U.S. National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. It is also the first of McCarthy's "Border Trilogy". The book was adapted as a 2000 film starring Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz and directed by Billy Bob Thornton.

5 editions

Adrián Astur Álvarez reviewed All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

Review of 'All the Pretty Horses' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

McCarthy sandwiches his novels with devastating, poetic language that always humbles me as a reader. I hang on every sentence and marvel at his mastery of language, often used in ways I hadn't thought of before, but then the stories find their legs and I am absorbed completely into the characters and events as they unfold. This novel is no different. What I didn't expect, having only read Blood Meridian before this was how entertaining and funny so much of the core story would be. There are dark moments for the characters, for sure, but those are earned. McCarthy loves these characters and that love spreads across the page.

jaymeb reviewed All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

Review of 'All the Pretty Horses' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I'm a firm believer in giving up on a book if it doesn't grab you in the first 50 pages. Life is too short, and full of too many great reads, to struggle with a book. When I first picked up All the Pretty Horses I was underwhelmed. Couple of teenage boys leave home to travel down to Mexico for...well, I was never really clear on the reason. Perhaps because they're young they don't need a reason. They find work and one falls in love with the ranch owner's daughter. Naturally, that doesn't go over well yada yada yada. I almost gave up. Almost.

The thing that finally sucked me in was the character development. Our protagonist, John Grady, learns about life in a hard way. It doesn't destroy him or scar him or anything. It just teaches him. He has been one of the most interesting and solid characters …