This book, and the other two in the Border Trilogy, captured my heart from the beginning. McCarthy does a fabulous job with character development, so you feel like you really know the main character and understand how he thinks as he comes of age. To top this off, what impressed me most is McCarthy's ability to describe the land, the people in it, the animals, the sky, etc. There are very few books where I really feel as if I'm place, but All the Pretty Horses took me from the U.S. to Mexico and never let me go. Some might need the first 30-50 pages to really get into this book, and the descriptions do make for a slower-paced novel. It's not a thriller, and it doesn't read like one. Personally, I can't recommend it highly enough. I've read it twice. I've actually read this one and the Crossing twice because I had to read them again when Cities of the Plains finally came out.