Ok, I knew before I started to read it that this book is loved by my GR-friends. But still, I was surprised how much I loved it. 
 In the beginning, I felt that the pace was too fast/too rough, more like information in newspaper than a novel. Then, I completely forgot any faults the narration could have had, because I was gripped totally. 
 we are not all made alike 
 Exactly! And I found here so different personalities: Alexandra vs. Emil, Oscar/Lou vs. Carl, Marie vs. Frank. A magnificent palette of humans. The way, Willa Cather described her characters, was her own. Most characteristics I saw through what they did. Nonetheless, there were a few very remarkable direct descriptions, e.g.: 
 Her personal life, her own realization of herself, was almost a subconscious existence; like an underground river that came to the surface only here and there, at intervals months apart, and then sank again to flow on under her own fields. Nevertheless, the underground stream was there, and it was because she had so much personality to put into her enterprises and succeeded in putting it into them so completely, that her affairs prospered better than those of her neighbors 
 He, who had always wanted to see things blacker than they were, for once wanted to believe less than he saw. 
 Next, I was enchanted by the world of the American pioneers. Often harsh, but so full of hope and belief in 'the land''. Each time I read a book about (more or less) the beginning of USA I am surprised anew, who those people were, how they survived. 
 We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it--for a little while 
 Willa Cather have become a candidate for one of my favorite writers. I hope that her other books are just as wonderful.