Customer Reviews

Cowboys Are My Weakness

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Pam Houston's fictional characters somehow to always seem like the great lady herself, eccentric, strong, athletic, daring, and tough. And then there are the men. They have it tough in Houston's world, and no wonder. Sometimes even she agrees that she probably treats her dogs better than she does her men.
However, while her women are gutsy, they are still vulnerable, still learning, still making mistakes, and the biggest seems to be falling for inaccessible men. As her character says in the title story of this collection, "I've always had a thing for cowboys...but they're hard to find these days, even in the West."
Full of gender-heavy wisecracking, Cowboys are My Weakness will have you laughing, groaning, and crying. Enjoy yourself.

Given to me by the same friend who sent me "Girl Interrupted," "Anywhere But Here," and "Sin," I figured this must be something worth reading.

Starting out, I began to think this was going to be a Rosamonde Pilcher type book, and "Cowboys..." does share Pilcher's usual theme: independent-woman-finds-love-in-the-arms-of-someone-cooler-and-smarter-than-Fabio. And the title of the collection implies a lot: the protagonists are all generally strong women who lose it over the Marlboro Man.

But there is an underlying pathos in the collection, an electric charge of wild man and level-headed woman. I am sure you could turn out a killer essay exploring the sexual politics in these stories, but they are also just good fun.

The tales are very well-written, and the settings are very nicely described. If the reader wants to feel what it'd be like to escape to the high desert with a trapper like Jim Bridger or to the mountains with a cute outlaw like Jesse James, reading this book is a good way to do that.

The writer's obvious familiarity with exciting, rugged skills like snow camping and game scouting is impressive, and this knowledge gives the stories extra substance.

Warning to animal lovers: contains hunting.

My friends recommended this book to me, and I was really prepared to LOVE it. But, as much fun as it is to read these stories over a weekend, by Sunday night, I found myself disappointed with the whole sort of flat/one sided depiction of relationships. Yes, I can relate to the line, "I've always had this thing for cowboys, maybe because I was born in New Jersey. But a real cowboy is hard to find these days, even in the West." And as someone who grew up in Connecticut and moved West, I agree that there's a truth to the concept of a western type of guy that you don't find on the East coast. I thought this book would be about that difference. But after about 4 stories, all these men start to sound the same-- and no different from the wrong men anywhere. Charming, evasive, manipulative, self-centered. So it turns out Houston isn't writing about cowboys--guys who are truly passionate about the outdoor life and adventure. This book, it turns out, is about the wrong guy, over and over! And I find that boring.

Also-- I don't know, maybe it's the guys Pam Houston knows.... but in my experience, many "bad boys" have a sensitive, decent side to them... which comes through in a pinch. The guys in these stories, are just totally stereotypical immature womanizers through and through, and that doesn't really ring true to me. I also found myself getting impatient with the narrator, who seems very similar in each story. Initially, she seems independent and gutsy, but soon you notice that her complete energy and thought is taken up with "the care and feeding of the man." And in many stories, she is a victim. Does she really love adventure, or is she just trying to keep up with these men and be what they want her to be?

The stories are really well written and the premise intriguing, but don't think this book offers an accurate depiction of either cowboys or the women who are attracted to them. It's really about a woman who needs to figure out why she wants to hang around men who are not trustworthy or respectful of her.

I'd enjoy meeting the people who didn't enjoy this collection of strong, entertaining stories. Houston has a good ear for language and the emotions she evokes with her rythmns. She is good at writing about strong women who make bad choices out of weakness, and weak women who make strong choices out of fear.

My 30-year old husband devoured this book, as did my 19-year old female neice (who only reads soccer magazines). It's not just a Gen-X chick thing as some may say.

This is Pam Houston at her strongest! (If you loved it, stay with it, steer clear of "Waltzing the Cat".)

This book was OK. Just OK. I didn't think the writing stood up to the glowing reviews that I read. On the other hand, it's a quick read. The plots of the stories were very predictable. After you read one, you had really read all of them. I used to live in West, and I've known a few cowboys in my time. Her portrayal of both was a little trite. These guys weren't cowboys, they were just garden variety losers.

I was reading with pleasure Pam Houston's "Cowboys.." and after finishing 'Jackson is Only One of My Dogs' decided to order more of her work and went into Amazon.com to check what else she had written. As always I check other readers reviews, so I looked at what they said about "Cowboys...", and now I realize how off these reviews can be. It is amazing. Houston is smart, funny and a very elegant writer. She is having a ball telling us these stories. It is well written FICTION folks. Of course she exaggerates...It is sad that you failed to get the humor, and the underlying stories she tells.
I thoroughly enjoyed her work so far, and look forward to reading more from her.

I read the first story here and I thought "I know this man." Charming, fun, totally evasive of serious discussion, running all over town, sexy in his absolute foreignness. But as I went on, I decided that (thank goodness) the men I know may seem to be like Houston's men at first, but there's more kindness and intelligence beneath the surface of mine. I don't know if her vision is flawed, or mine is, or she just knows some really lousy (but definitely attractive) men. I guess there are a few deep-down good ones here, but they kind of fade in comparison to the others. Whatever the case, these stories are really good -- often side-splittingly funny (especially when you're thinking you know the men), insightful, sometimes sad, and in love with the outdoors and the beauty of the world. Probably, though, you shouldn't do what I did and read them all in an afternoon. By the end they start to seem a little less true, a little more like rote repetition of a view of the world in which men really are, by nature, unable to commit, untrustworthy, unavailable. And if they are that way by nature, then you can't hold it against them, can you? So it lets them off easy. I'd have liked to see Houston simultaneously be more generous to men and hold them a little more to account for their misbehavior.

I liked this book, because of its realism. It is a painfully real portrayal of women who hurt themselves by being with men who treat them badly. I most liked the parts about her dogs, and about her girlfriend, better than the parts about the men, because I got tired of hearing about the same frustrating behaviors. However even in its repetitiveness it remained real, because it was like therapy. She had to keep telling herself the same story, to pound it into her head. In this way the end was satisfying, because she got herself out of the rut and got deeper, more creative, and the life-meanings fleshed out.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed this collection of short stories quite a bit. It conveyed a certain feeling which, while I have never experienced as a 20-something man who has always lived in big cities, I felt like I did after reading her stories. The storeis were immensely readable, and quite engrossing, and the characters were very vividly portrayed. My only hesitation is that for all of the accolades this book has gotten, I think Judith Freeman does a similar thing in her writings, and does it better. So if you enjoyed this book (and I expect most of its readers will), I also suggest you check out FAMILY ATTRACTIONS or A DESERT OF PURE FEELING, for a book in a similar vein.

It was unpleasant to read this book after hearing it was full of interesting insight on cowboys, women in the west, wilderness writing, love in the west, and the humor was flat and there was not much of it. I get fresher stories off TV. The details of life outdoors are pretty sketchy, makes me wonder if this writer has left her heart and imagination back in the suburbs. She sure is impressed with herself. And that is too bad because there is a lot to be said about the social lives and land in our times. This author is too busy singing me me me me me ... Go with Terry Tempest Williams and Greta Erlich.