A review by allisonjpmiller
Waverley by Walter Scott

3.0

Despite all the references lost on me (mostly via the Baron of Bradwardine) and frequently unreadable transcriptions of old Scottish dialect, I liked this enough that I want to read more of Scott's later work. Whaaat! He's quite funny when he wants to be, his Romantic descriptions of the Highlands are arresting when they don't fall into the trap of being perfunctory, and his characters are more memorable than I was expecting. I feel like he probably smoothed over some of the rougher edges of his storytelling style in later books? This being the first "historical fiction" novel (in our modern sense of the term), I'm willing to forgive the bits that don't flow.

I loved the fact that this brought to life many of the specific locales (e.g. Doune Castle!) that I visited on my 2018 trip to Scotland. Made it easier to orient myself—and of course, now I want to go back even more than I already did. Sigh.