Ugh. Okay. Maybe I burned myself out reading the first and second novels in less than two weeks. Maybe I have a moral dilemma trying to accept the characters past and present actions. Or maybe this book just went way off track from the first two? Regardless of what camp you come from in your beliefs, here is my review...

I think...I might give this a 2.75 star rating. I just had a lot of problems with how characters treated each other, and an even bigger problem with following this novel linearly. This novel did N O T need to be 1000+ pages long... There were so many characters and plots and random tid-bits of information that just didn't advance anything. Sure, in pure Gabaldon style we may see these characters or have them referenced in future books, but I didn't need pages upon pages discussing spiders, or fungus, etc. The woman (Gabaldon) is clearly a genius, and while I applaud her vast knowledge on boundless subjects it really detracted and distracted from the 'story' trying to be told.

I also just got incredibly frustrated with how Claire and Jamie treated each other and everyone else in their lives? I completely understand that in 20 years they will have changed, but for Claire to be this unfathomable love that comes back into Jamie's life, I'd expect him to maybe, oh I don't know...be honest with her? And I'd expect Claire to be a little less cold-hearted and closed off to everyone in her life. I was so frustrated with the characters, that it made me lose interest in their story. Why should I care about these people anymore? It made finishing this novel a grueling task, and a chore, instead of the thing I most looked forward to doing every day.

I really felt like the events in this novel were wildly and vastly outrageous. Sure...all of those things would have happened in that time period. But not all at once, and not to the same person/people. It was like seven plots of different novels all smashed together into one novel to make it thrilling and exciting. Except I wasn't thrilled or excited every time a (SPOILER ALERT) boat crashed, or a storm came, or they were separated from each other, or someone was murdered. I was bored by the repetition of the, pardon my pun, outlandish narrative we were being force fed.

If you've gotten this far into the review and are thinking, wow being kinda harsh huh? I'd say yes, I am being harsh because I was so passionate about this story and these characters. It's all I could talk about to friends and coworkers, and I feel extremely let down. The characters I knew and loved barely existed in this novel. I feel like I've been ghosted by a book!

I'll t r y reading the next one, but don't hold your breath. The DNF tag exists for a reason.