O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

 My Nook is on strike and won't let me connect to the internet to order new books so I'm making my way through some of the things already on my Nook...such as the contents of the "25 Favorite Novels".  Cather's O Pioneers! was on deck.  I don't think I've read her before and certainly have not read this book before.

First, the good:  Alexandra is an amazing, strong woman character.  As fictional heroines go, she should be at the top of anyone's list.  She is smart, motivated, she knows her own mind, she seeks the things that she wants.  She may not, as is pointed out in the novel, be overrunning with imagination, and her story was set in a time when women were not expected to "have it all".  She chose financial success and lost out on personal success, though perhaps her care of her little brother Emil stood in for her lack of her own children. Not that single womanhood can not be fulfulling, but she does seem to question her own decisions and does seem to regret the lack of a family.  Ultimately she does get her happily ever after, though given her age this at the time this is unlikely to result in offspring of her own.  

Emil's tragic love story is wound throughout the book and stands as the focus of the