Reviews

318 pages. I’m done. I think I’m done with this world and this series. I can’t push myself through this.

Authors must earn our trust and the KEEP it. I’m not kept. I skipped the entire first half of Firey Cross because reviewers I trusted said it wasn’t worth it. I’m not doing this again.

What is even going on?

I want to understand the magic! I want to know why some can travel and others can’t!

I’m so bored with the William and John chapters. I’m sorry…. Snore. All the pining for Jamie… from EVERYONE. He’s not like other boys… I guess?

Okay. I gave it a good shot. I can’t keep swimming through this.

robynforney12's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

danaisreading's review against another edition

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3.0

Almost a thousand pages long, and the first third can skipped over without missing anything. The only thing that happened was

Spoiler

a VERY minor character was killed by a bear.

Even if an editor had done the job of tightening this book up, it still would have taken me a long time to read. Something about Gabaldon's writing style makes it impossible for me to read at my normal pace, but I don't know what it is.

I love Outlander. I do. The first two novels of the series are ranked fairly high among my favorite novels. But, and what I'm about to say is blasphemous, the most boring parts of Book 9 were with Jamie and Claire at Fraser's Ridge. Sure, the last 50 pages were exciting and nerve-wracking as the Revolution finally comes to Fraser's Ridge, but the rest? Meh.

Roger, Bree, William, Lord John, and Young Ian take up the majority of the novel, and honestly that's all that it needed to be. Might have saved us all half the pages and several years of waiting for this.

mike1's review against another edition

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1.0

I've been extremely nice by giving this book a 1* rating and if I could of rated it lower I would of.This book felt like a chore to read and at one point I was struggling to keep my eyes open it was that bad and it took me nearly 6 weeks to finish it.Claire and Jamie feel more like background characters in this book than the main characters.If I didn't read the previous books I'd of probably gave up about 10% into the book.For a book at nearly 900 pages long and 7 years in the making you'd expect a strong story and a page turner book.
Here are the reasons for the low ratings (WARNING

debz57a52's review against another edition

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2.5

Hmmmm.... This is the 9th Outlander book I read in little under a year, after never reading a single book or seeing a single minute of the show. Claire and Jamie and Ian and Jenny and Fergus and Brianna and Roger and all those other people are part of my soul. I open a book with them and I return to my make-believe family. It's comfortable and I like that.

But.

Although all those comfortable people were in this book, and I really love that, this was not a fabulous book for them. It gave big second-bo0k-in-a-trilogy vibes, trying to connect the previous book with the next book with a huge heap of purgatory and abstract development. Yeah, I know revolutions do not develop quickly and there's lots of behind the scenes talking and planning and such. And by now, Gabaldon has introduced so many characters with limited 3rd person narration that she needs to check on each one, but it's rare for any of them are co-habitating. But there has got to be some resolution to some of these conflicts eventually, right? I mean, there are even old characters who resurface in this book, reopening conflicts that I thought had already been resolved / avoided! Yeesh!

I skipped over a lot of the long natural descriptions in this volume (and previous ones, too, really). They are well-written, but badly-placed for pacing so often, imho.

lewislover's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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

5.0

I love this series!

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