bcgg's review against another edition
4.0
Clever concept, lots of action and interesting things to learn. Very enjoyable,
lissajean7's review against another edition
3.0
Honestly, I didn't really intend to ever read this. Then it was recommended by a trusted friend. So, the story is fascinating, the characters are clear, the description is immersive, and in general, I had difficulty putting it down. Also, the sexual encounters between the romantic leads are less explicit than I was expecting (not really a ringing endorsement on that front though), but there are also too many sexually violent encounters in general. The main issue, however, is that the format of the book is odd and while chronological to her life, felt a bit disjointed, and eventually somewhat unsatisfying at the end because it didn't really end. But it felt like it ended way before it ended, but... Well... I can see this making a better tv show (though probably MUCH more explicit as a visual medium) because of the random storyline feel. I did stay up most of the night reading it though, so... However, I can't tell if it's because I might not have picked it back up to finish it, just my incessant need to finish things, or because I really enjoyed it. I am almost sure I won't be picking up the next one, and I guess that says more than anything else, probably.
carolbsmith's review against another edition
5.0
I read for entertainment, and this book certainly supplied a wealth of that! I laughed, I cried, I thought about it when I wasn't reading it, I re-read some paragraphs because I loved how the words were put together, and I raced through other parts because I could hardly wait to see what happened. Diana Gabaldon is truly a gifted storyteller.
glitterbomb47's review against another edition
3.0
Feeling rather conflicted about this book. The writing is uneven - sometimes great, sometimes eye-roll-worthy. Some parts of the plot were excellent, some were disturbing, some were dumb and impossible to swallow. Also a lot of sex.
amberrenee9's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
ladystardust55's review against another edition
5.0
I've been re-reading this while watching the tv series. I was concerned, before the casting of the tv series, that I wouldn't enjoy the books as much if the casting was wrong but fortunately the casting has been perfect and I enjoyed the re-read just as much, if not more, having faces to put to all the characters.
rubyfur's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
electparty's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Based on the content warnings this books sounds horrible, but I promise it is fantastic. It is an historical fiction/romance set in the 18th Century and post-WW2 Scotland, written in the late 1980s-early 1990s so it isn’t pristine in the sense of today’s sensibilities. That said, if you’re looking for an immersive, incredibly well-researched, thoughtfully-written, and unforgettable historical romance that generally defies genre, try this out.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Torture, Sexual violence, Medical content, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, and Colonisation
Moderate: Animal death, Religious bigotry, Gore, Cursing, and War
Minor: Fatphobia
jbeesknees's review against another edition
5.0
Breathtaking. Amazing. Erotic. Full of emotional charge.
laviskrg's review against another edition
2.0
Finally! Oh my god, this was one of the greatest feats of intellectual effort in my life! This book was fucking bad! So god damned over-praised and ass-kissed throughout generations. Mostly by women. I would wonder why, but seeing as my gender has devolved for the past 2 decades or so, I honestly know the answer.
This 850-page torment was not the worst book that I've ever read. It managed to keep me going through some bizarre form of black magic I have rarely encountered before. It promised a lot, it gave A WHOLE LOT, but what it gave was not what I needed or expected. I expected a fun, sexy easy to read time travel adventure, as escapist chill bit of porn and some well-written historical settings. What I got instead was a fucking SOAP OPERA with a cliched Scottish cast, a weak, boring, limited, repetitive main female lead who lives in her own head but offers NO actual answers or meaningful introspection, a gay sadistic rapist for a villain (NO other motivation except the desire to fuck his younger brother), uncountable scenes of boring, both over-described AND under-described sex scenes (HOW???), a little bit of gratuitous violence, but nothing that could even come close to sating my blood thirst, a lot of borderline-retarded couple talk, chock-full of exaggerated promises and vows and desperate attempts at ignoring virginal awkwardness and let's not forget the general dysfunctional nature of the whole "idealized" relationship. And so so much more. In short: "action" scenes that are stretched over pages not because of the in-depth of the writing, but because of the cheap, purple nature of it. It is clearly more difficult to write amazing, comprehensive and exciting descriptions, that takes ACTUAL skill, not a fetish for one's own vocabulary.
The book tends to become better in the last third when there is LESS grunting, crushing, dominating sex and more humanity and also....more risk and violence. BUT in order for one to truly feel for the male lead's rape and torture, one must actually FEEL something for that particular character which is not the sexual frustration and faux-enamoring that I suspect 85% of the female fans in the community feel (which saddens me, truly). No, I was not impressed with Jamie, a character that, ignoring drama and suffering, does not change or grow throughout the story! He is charming, well-versed in languages, strong, potent, virile, stubborn, violent, supposedly funny, brave, an excellent rider and a good fighter and, in my opinion, one of the most limited male characters in modern literature FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END. He simply is (a fucking boring cliched as well), he does not grow. He is a religious peasant with a desire to copulate and a weird virginal attachment. I never felt that he actually RESPECTED Claire, or deigned it important to actually LEARN something from a woman who traveled back in time, who has knowledge of so much (supposedly cos in truth, Claire is an idiot), who has the ability to fuck with time itself. Nah, he is only a lad who falls for a wee lass, marries her so he can bed her (cos otherwise, his sky god would frown on the poor wee lad), and dominates her with violence, difference in height and strength and basically uses her as an orifice for his member, a member whose usage boggles my mind considering the amounts of damage that this 23 year old youngster takes throughout the book. So, sorry, Mrs. Author, it is NOT enough to have the male lead subjected to rape, mental breakdown and torture to get a sigh of empathy. I read books like a psychopath. I don't FALL for imaginary characters, I need to be made to feel for them, to understand them, to love them due to the way in which they are written and due to the quality of the story, and due to them feeling REAL. Good, bad, I don't care. Hot or not, I don't care. But please, not 6 ft tall cardboard cut-outs.
Yet, nothing, absolutely NOTHING, was less disappointing than the mind in which the reader is locked into, this being a 1st person book. The mind of fucking Claire "I-love-my-husband-but-hot-young-meat-makes-me-drop-it-all-in-a-month-or-so", the lamest nurse that has ever served in WW2. Yeah, sure, she mends bones. Some of them. She stitches wounds. Ok, cool. SHE MAKES ONE SINGLE FUCKING MENTION ABOUT THE WORST EVENT IN HUMAN HISTORY, which she'd just lived through......ONE. SINGLE. MENTION. Please, fangirls, please try to get your head around this simple concept. She has survived a genocide, has served in wards where men were broken into tiny pieces, physically and mentally, has seen the most modern elements of human technology used to destroy, burn, murder and disintegrate. She has seen, heard, smelled and tasted death. And yet, she is on the verge of fainting every time she thinks about Jaime being flogged. I am not saying flogging is chill, but ... WW2. The Nazis. The occupation of entire countries. The camps. WTF!
Claire is also an expert botanist because hobbies and she will obviously use every root and flower in Scotland to heal any infection ever. Cos you know, that's what happens when the main characters can't be killed off. Fuck historical accuracy. Fuck the fact that this book is supposedly taking place in the real, dirty, gross, elf-magic-free world. Fuck antibiotics most of all. You can just use that wee plant on the Fairie Hill.
But what offended me most about Claire is the fact that, despite a visible effort to make her stand out from the usual female protagonists of the early 90s (aka, the swooning, delicate, feminine heroines cradled in Fabio's bulging biceps), she was actually one of the first Mary-Sues, albeit leagues over the modern-day highschool young adult Mary Sue. She is a woman who thinks she is plain, but yet, most males naturally need to penetrate her almost on sight. She has had a colourful and difficult background from which she's learned exactly those few skills through which she can aid the clearly inferior males around her. She is out of place but somehow manages to fit in right away. She falls down a lot, gets beaten up, scratched, cut, bitten but never sustains anything beyond a few bruises and scratches. She is constantly subjected to cold temperatures and freezing rivers and mud, but never catches a fever, pneumonia or the most basic of urinary tract infections. I care for such details, cos otherwise, what is the point of SO MUCH fucking drama??? I'll tell you what: the forced attachment to characters that are really not interesting at all. Geilis Duncan, for example, had at most 10 pages of attention, but I would read 850 pages about her. But not written by this author, though.
Also, rape. Ah, the rape that seemed to traumatize SO MANY wenches weak in the head....I myself was not impressed, scared, terrified or traumatized by the instances of rape or, mostly, attempted rape. I know what history was like and I know what humanity is like today. However, when rape is used as nothing more than a plot point, and used to the point of inducing nausea, there is an issue. Literally any character of some import with a hole somewhere in their body is always threatened to get raped, then killed. I somehow doubt this in its entirety. While rape was used as a war crime, as something dehumanizing and grotesque, it was definitely NOT served constantly, daily, hourly, in any conflicting situation. Also, in order for me to feel something other than exhaustion and impatience, I need to have some kind of report with the characters. Otherwise, no, sorry, don't care. Maybe I am a psychopath or maybe I am smarter than the average Outlander reader. A note for the writer: everything, including rape, torture and murder, becomes tedious and irrelevant when it is an almost occurrence every 20 pages or so. It takes away from any stress or fear. It becomes a cheap plot point. And you have done this for basically any human suffering imaginable in this book.
Why, do you ask, would I give this pile of drivel more than one star. I don't fucking know. Let's make a mathematical calculus:
1. The song that made me want to read this desperately: 5 stars (congrats Starz show)
2. The main female lead - 1 star
3. The main male lead - 1 star
4. The drama - 1 star
5. The quality of writing - 1 star
6. The story overall - 3 stars ( it wasn't bad as far as time travel bodice rippers go)
7. The villain - 1 star
8. The "history" - 1 star. This is supposed to be highly researched, but I got less info than a 10 minute skin of a Wikipedia page would give me. But I already know Scottish history so 5 stars to me.
So it's 14 / 8 = 1.75. Since I've always believed in rounding up numbers in the advantage of the poor sod who tried, here's a generous 2 stars from me. But fuck off as "the number one bestseller that charmed generations".
Will I go on with the series? I highly doubt it, but I truly don't know. Depends on the show, which is vastly superior. Might just stick to that, cos I can binge that in one weekend and read actually relevant pieces of literature for the remaining month.
This 850-page torment was not the worst book that I've ever read. It managed to keep me going through some bizarre form of black magic I have rarely encountered before. It promised a lot, it gave A WHOLE LOT, but what it gave was not what I needed or expected. I expected a fun, sexy easy to read time travel adventure, as escapist chill bit of porn and some well-written historical settings. What I got instead was a fucking SOAP OPERA with a cliched Scottish cast, a weak, boring, limited, repetitive main female lead who lives in her own head but offers NO actual answers or meaningful introspection, a gay sadistic rapist for a villain (NO other motivation except the desire to fuck his younger brother), uncountable scenes of boring, both over-described AND under-described sex scenes (HOW???), a little bit of gratuitous violence, but nothing that could even come close to sating my blood thirst, a lot of borderline-retarded couple talk, chock-full of exaggerated promises and vows and desperate attempts at ignoring virginal awkwardness and let's not forget the general dysfunctional nature of the whole "idealized" relationship. And so so much more. In short: "action" scenes that are stretched over pages not because of the in-depth of the writing, but because of the cheap, purple nature of it. It is clearly more difficult to write amazing, comprehensive and exciting descriptions, that takes ACTUAL skill, not a fetish for one's own vocabulary.
The book tends to become better in the last third when there is LESS grunting, crushing, dominating sex and more humanity and also....more risk and violence. BUT in order for one to truly feel for the male lead's rape and torture, one must actually FEEL something for that particular character which is not the sexual frustration and faux-enamoring that I suspect 85% of the female fans in the community feel (which saddens me, truly). No, I was not impressed with Jamie, a character that, ignoring drama and suffering, does not change or grow throughout the story! He is charming, well-versed in languages, strong, potent, virile, stubborn, violent, supposedly funny, brave, an excellent rider and a good fighter and, in my opinion, one of the most limited male characters in modern literature FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END. He simply is (a fucking boring cliched as well), he does not grow. He is a religious peasant with a desire to copulate and a weird virginal attachment. I never felt that he actually RESPECTED Claire, or deigned it important to actually LEARN something from a woman who traveled back in time, who has knowledge of so much (supposedly cos in truth, Claire is an idiot), who has the ability to fuck with time itself. Nah, he is only a lad who falls for a wee lass, marries her so he can bed her (cos otherwise, his sky god would frown on the poor wee lad), and dominates her with violence, difference in height and strength and basically uses her as an orifice for his member, a member whose usage boggles my mind considering the amounts of damage that this 23 year old youngster takes throughout the book. So, sorry, Mrs. Author, it is NOT enough to have the male lead subjected to rape, mental breakdown and torture to get a sigh of empathy. I read books like a psychopath. I don't FALL for imaginary characters, I need to be made to feel for them, to understand them, to love them due to the way in which they are written and due to the quality of the story, and due to them feeling REAL. Good, bad, I don't care. Hot or not, I don't care. But please, not 6 ft tall cardboard cut-outs.
Yet, nothing, absolutely NOTHING, was less disappointing than the mind in which the reader is locked into, this being a 1st person book. The mind of fucking Claire "I-love-my-husband-but-hot-young-meat-makes-me-drop-it-all-in-a-month-or-so", the lamest nurse that has ever served in WW2. Yeah, sure, she mends bones. Some of them. She stitches wounds. Ok, cool. SHE MAKES ONE SINGLE FUCKING MENTION ABOUT THE WORST EVENT IN HUMAN HISTORY, which she'd just lived through......ONE. SINGLE. MENTION. Please, fangirls, please try to get your head around this simple concept. She has survived a genocide, has served in wards where men were broken into tiny pieces, physically and mentally, has seen the most modern elements of human technology used to destroy, burn, murder and disintegrate. She has seen, heard, smelled and tasted death. And yet, she is on the verge of fainting every time she thinks about Jaime being flogged. I am not saying flogging is chill, but ... WW2. The Nazis. The occupation of entire countries. The camps. WTF!
Claire is also an expert botanist because hobbies and she will obviously use every root and flower in Scotland to heal any infection ever. Cos you know, that's what happens when the main characters can't be killed off. Fuck historical accuracy. Fuck the fact that this book is supposedly taking place in the real, dirty, gross, elf-magic-free world. Fuck antibiotics most of all. You can just use that wee plant on the Fairie Hill.
But what offended me most about Claire is the fact that, despite a visible effort to make her stand out from the usual female protagonists of the early 90s (aka, the swooning, delicate, feminine heroines cradled in Fabio's bulging biceps), she was actually one of the first Mary-Sues, albeit leagues over the modern-day highschool young adult Mary Sue. She is a woman who thinks she is plain, but yet, most males naturally need to penetrate her almost on sight. She has had a colourful and difficult background from which she's learned exactly those few skills through which she can aid the clearly inferior males around her. She is out of place but somehow manages to fit in right away. She falls down a lot, gets beaten up, scratched, cut, bitten but never sustains anything beyond a few bruises and scratches. She is constantly subjected to cold temperatures and freezing rivers and mud, but never catches a fever, pneumonia or the most basic of urinary tract infections. I care for such details, cos otherwise, what is the point of SO MUCH fucking drama??? I'll tell you what: the forced attachment to characters that are really not interesting at all. Geilis Duncan, for example, had at most 10 pages of attention, but I would read 850 pages about her. But not written by this author, though.
Also, rape. Ah, the rape that seemed to traumatize SO MANY wenches weak in the head....I myself was not impressed, scared, terrified or traumatized by the instances of rape or, mostly, attempted rape. I know what history was like and I know what humanity is like today. However, when rape is used as nothing more than a plot point, and used to the point of inducing nausea, there is an issue. Literally any character of some import with a hole somewhere in their body is always threatened to get raped, then killed. I somehow doubt this in its entirety. While rape was used as a war crime, as something dehumanizing and grotesque, it was definitely NOT served constantly, daily, hourly, in any conflicting situation. Also, in order for me to feel something other than exhaustion and impatience, I need to have some kind of report with the characters. Otherwise, no, sorry, don't care. Maybe I am a psychopath or maybe I am smarter than the average Outlander reader. A note for the writer: everything, including rape, torture and murder, becomes tedious and irrelevant when it is an almost occurrence every 20 pages or so. It takes away from any stress or fear. It becomes a cheap plot point. And you have done this for basically any human suffering imaginable in this book.
Why, do you ask, would I give this pile of drivel more than one star. I don't fucking know. Let's make a mathematical calculus:
1. The song that made me want to read this desperately: 5 stars (congrats Starz show)
2. The main female lead - 1 star
3. The main male lead - 1 star
4. The drama - 1 star
5. The quality of writing - 1 star
6. The story overall - 3 stars ( it wasn't bad as far as time travel bodice rippers go)
7. The villain - 1 star
8. The "history" - 1 star. This is supposed to be highly researched, but I got less info than a 10 minute skin of a Wikipedia page would give me. But I already know Scottish history so 5 stars to me.
So it's 14 / 8 = 1.75. Since I've always believed in rounding up numbers in the advantage of the poor sod who tried, here's a generous 2 stars from me. But fuck off as "the number one bestseller that charmed generations".
Will I go on with the series? I highly doubt it, but I truly don't know. Depends on the show, which is vastly superior. Might just stick to that, cos I can binge that in one weekend and read actually relevant pieces of literature for the remaining month.