Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - Outlander

I just couldn't get into the writing. I wanted to see their relationship advance more, yet there was a lot of extra world-building that I wasn't interested in. Some parts were interesting, but I couldn't get into it. So if you like long, world-building writing, this is a great book.

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bree_h_reads's review against another edition

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If I had finished the book I think it would have been 2-2.5 stars. There was a lot about the book I enjoyed and thought was well-written, but overall it didn’t appeal to me and didn’t keep my interest.

I was often bored and found it hard to focus on the book. There was also the issue of the book’s SA. It felt over done and like it was for shock value. There was just something odd about it and how often it was used. Like it was unrealistically being used for realism. The book’s men also made me uncomfortable overall. A mix of the struggle between overplaying the sexism of the time AND when the book was written. Even when male characters were meant to be likeable, I just found myself untrusting of them. The spicy in the book also felt a little odd, though it’s not as bad as the other issues.

That isn’t to say the book lacked merits.

The narrator herself was excellent. Her voice was very well-suited to the story and Claire. She also did an excellent job with the character voices. They were all well-acted and distinct. I also appreciated how much research it seemed was done for Claire’s medical knowledge. There was a distinct sense the author really understood what Claire would know and had access to after time travelling. Despite many of the men making me uncomfortable, I really liked the other characters. They all felt complex and unique. I found it interesting to sort out their struggles and secrets.

Overall I do see the appeal of these books and why people enjoy them, they just aren’t for me.

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callie_pearce's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

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lilyalsup's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Long but good.

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katmystery's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

This book barely passes the Bechdel test. For something literally narrated by a woman, that is pretty bad.

For the first 40%, this was an engaging historical fic, albeit a bit slow, about a witty former WWII army nurse who finds herself brought back in time to 1740s Scotland. Then, when the romance plot started, suddenly it was all about her 18th century love interest, a character who Gabaldon endlessly romanticized despite his highly abusive and controlling behavior. When I wasn’t horrified by Jamie, I was bored by hundreds upon hundreds of pages of conversations and events that added nothing to the plot or character development, and I quickly grew to be so irritated by the narrator that I just wanted it to end. In addition to all of this, all the women who are sexually assaulted in this book (and there are a lot) are blamed for the assault, and the so-called “feminist” narrator does this, too. She’s barely more progressive than people from the 1700s; for half the book, she doesn’t care about anything but the abusive love interest.

I only finished this because of the sunk cost fallacy. 2 stars for the historical aspects, which were well done.

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frantically's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

If by this point you haven't heard of Outlander, you've been living under a rock. I'm not going to add anything meaningful in my review here that hasn't been said before.

I really enjoyed this! I listened to it as an audiobook and the parts that would've probably been tedious in book form still worked well that way. I'm up to season 5? 6? now and I really just wanted to go back to the Claire and Jamie of season 1 for some time <3

I took multiple breaks and listened to whole other audiobooks during this and I think that's how I didn't end up hating it 🙈 It is very long (obviously) but it is also very good. The writing is excellent and Claire is such a good main character.

Would recommend, even if you've already watched the series :) I still enjoyed it a lot

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sem1995's review against another edition

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Claire started off as a compelling character, but as the story progressed, her strength seemed to fade, making her less appealing and somewhat weak in my eyes. I found it hard to connect with her conflicted feelings between Frank and Jamie, especially given Jamie's abusive actions and their lack of conversational depth after the marriage.

While Jamie was bearable at first, his behavior as a husband became increasingly irritating.
The way rape and domestic violence were portrayed left me feeling gross, and the romanticization of abuse as dominance was something I couldn't overlook.
Although the plot showed promise initially, it eventually lost its depth, focusing mainly on Jamie and Claire's sexual dynamics post-marriage, at the expense of emotional complexity and substantial narrative development.

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