Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

26 reviews

sup3r_xn0va_maya's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

💬: “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered into my hair. “There’s the two of us now.” I felt warm, soothed, and safe for the first time in many days."

Gabaldon, Diana. Outlander: A Novel (Outlander, Book 1) (p. 212). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

📖Genres: romance, romantasy, adult, adventure, historical romance, historical, fantasy

📚Page Count: 850

🎧Audiobook Length: 32h 38min

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️ - 2/5
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TW -
ableism, animal death, blood, body horror, cursing, death, death of parent, emotional abuse, gore, grief, injury/injury detail, misogyny, murder, physical abuse, pregnancy, rape, sexism, sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual content, sexual violence, torture, violence, vomit, war


Outlander by Diana Gabaldon is an 800+ page historical romance that has action, spice, time travel, and adventure. Claire is a nurse from 1945 and she's thrusted back in time a few hundred years, where she has to survive until she figures out how to get home. It's here that she meets Jamie, a Scott who wants to show her a love so true. At least she won't have to try and survive alone, with him by her side. I didn't love this story, I barely liked it. Between the weird and slow pacing and the threat of rape being constantly thrown around, by the time the book was over I was exhausted and annoyed from the read.

I didn't like the book's pacing. The book started off really slow, I'd say it took about 2 to 3 hours of listening to the audiobook for the story to actually start moving forward. Once the story started to move, things got interesting and I became invested. Then, I'd say 200 pages into the action, things slowed down to a crawl and I stopped caring about the story. After about 150 pages of the slow crawl, things picked up again. Do you see where I'm going with this? This strange pacing continued throughout the entire novel.

(Trigger Warning  - rape, sexual assault)
The threat of rape was constant from the moment the main character went back in time. I understand that your female main character went back in time, that doesn't mean you have to have every other man she encounters try to physically & sexually attack her. I honestly should have counted the amount of times Claire was threated with physical or sexual harm by a man, there are a few times where she actually IS attacked. Claire apparently isn't the only one who's in danger of being sexually assaulted.
At the tail end of the book Jamie gets arrested and he incidentally ran into Randall, well Randall is an evil man so he wanted to take revenge on Jamie and he does that by mutilating, torturing, and raping Jamie for an uncertain amount of days.


(Trigger Warning  - rape, sexual assault, drugging)
Unfortunately, it gets worse. Now,
by the time Jamie is rescued from Randall at the end of the book, he has PTSD, he's so sick that he might die, and he doesn't want to look at his wife because he feels ashamed and disgusted with himself because of the sexual assault. How do I know this? Because he tells Claire and there's a dialogue about the assault and Jamie tells Claire exactly what was said and done to him. For some odd reason the author decided to make Claire drug Jamie with opium, so he hallucinates, and then she pretends to be his assaulter (Randall) and she says the things he said and then she does the things he physically did to elicit a response out of Jamie. Well, it does get a reaction, Jamie attacks Claire and they go tumbling to the ground (while Claire is getting beat on by Jamie). Somehow, while they're tumbling on the group Claire is able to insert Jamie into her, and now they're having intercourse. Claire "cured him" and helped him claim his "manhood".
OMG. How ridiculous, gross, and unnecessary.

(Trigger Warning - physical abuse, domestic abuse)
The spice fluctuated. At first I was into it but then there was this strange scene where
Jamie physically held down and beat Claire because he wanted to prove to his band of merry men that he was punishing her for her actions. I just didn't understand this scene, it made me sick to my stomach and it made me like Jamie a lot less than I previously did. After that, I wasn't interested in any spice between Jamie and Claire.
I'm giving it one and a half chilies 🌶️.5 out of five chilies

This book also ends in the
pregnancy trope
, and if you know me then you know I hate that trope very much. So, the ending was just disappointing for many reason. I really tried to trust recommendations and then trust the process with this one and that failed me. There were only a few times during the 32 hour audiobook that I enjoyed the reading experience. I just didn't like this book and I won't be continuing with the series.
⭐️⭐️ - 2/5

I listened to this for free on the library app, hoopladigital.com

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im_jennaaa's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense 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? It's complicated

5.0


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elphabethany's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense medium-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

5.0


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kmac14's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5


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amy_sl's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.75

The book begins relatively "innocently", with characters and themes suitable and likeable for the time period that Claire is transported into. However, trigger warnings for the last part of the book
descriptions of rape, body horror, wishing for death, torture etc. overall just unpleasant and disgusting. If you are sensitive to any of these things I wouldn't really recommend it. Though reoccurring themes throughout the whole book, the final third of the book takes it all a step further and, honestly, it's all just unnecessary as well.
I Had a pretty enjoyable read up until this point, but this last part definitely knocked off a few stars. 

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willow_belle's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative 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? Yes

4.5


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annadelreads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional informative tense slow-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

5.0

“You are safe," he said firmly. "You have my name and my family, my clan, and if necessary, the protection of my body as well. The man willna lay hands on ye again, while I live.”

This has been a blast. I had watched the Outlander series previously so I have a vague idea of what is going to happen. It is a 32.5 hours of worth of audiobook and I have it at around 1.7x to 1.9x speed. So I listened to this for more than half a day. Davina, the narrator, is splendidly amazing in doing her part. Her tone, pitch, accent, and everything on top was the mere reason why this had not been a boring listen. I can visually imagine what is happening and the most important thing is that I am able to know which character is speaking (but this is most probably due to Diana's writing as well). 

Story-wise, it is just still as amazing as when I watched the series. I'm amazed that the series didn't stray far from the book! The love between Jamie and Claire is just undeniable. We've all been with Claire as she decides which of her two husband would she pick and I'm with her through her thought process as well! 

I'm leaning towards buying Audible credits just so I can listen to the next books as well! 

There was a time when I was listening to this audiobook using my airpod and my boyfriend took of one my airpod as well for a listen. Sadly, it was during the part where Claire was being raped by Jack Randall. He thought it was just normal sex between two partners and it was so funny because I had to tell him that she was being raped and she definitely isn’t enjoying it. 🥴🥴🥴

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emhaze's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny reflective 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? Yes

5.0


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strawberrypinch's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5


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kcarney86's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious tense 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

4.25


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