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550 of 568 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful, but boring, October 11, 2009
I never in a million years thought I'd give DG less than five stars. She's one of three authors on my release-date auto-buy, and I've been eagerly awaiting this book for years. But having spent the last couple of weeks reading it, I really don't even know what to say (I know I should take that back - I ALWAYS have something to say and I'm about to say it).
Problem one: It took me several weeks to read. I'm a compulsive reader. I can't sleep with a story unfinished, and yet Echo never grabbed me. I went several days without evening picking it up because I didn't feel like it. I never felt emotionally engaged. A good lot of the time, I just didn't care what was happening. And even worse, I felt bored by the story.
Problem two: The book is so physically big that it hurt to read. And I mean that literally. I had shoulder and elbow pain from holding it up. It really, really needed to be cut. There was a point where I wished DG had cut out the last 150 pages and replaced them with "Six months later." There was just too much of mundane life and while beautifully written, it had no presence, no force, no suspense. The book overall needed more focus on story and less on how to fix a collapsed lung using nothing but tar and a bird feather. Many of the elements got lots of story didn't end up leading anywhere (such as Ian & the two orphan girls. I expected them to show up again.)
Problem three: Timing. The book is really three different stories. Jamie & Claire in 1777 America (mostly), William (Wee Willie) Ramsome in about the same time period, and Bree & Roger in 1980's Scotland. But the timelines didn't happen evenly and so I was often rather confused. For example: William is leaving to go find Dr. Hunter in the rebel camp. Then we switch to Jamie/Claire and cover 7-8-9 months time in a hundred or more pages. Then we go back to William who has found the doctor a day or so later. This went on throughout the book, and made me crazy. Since one of the main foreshadows of the book is that Jamie & William would meet again, I could never tell if they were even in the same time / same place.
Problem four: Pacing. The book has more of an episodic plot rather than linear. It unfolds around smaller incidents that contribute to a greater whole. Many of the smaller incidents involve the William, Lord Grey, and the battles of the American Revolution, Jamie & Claire trying to make it to Scotland, Roger and Bree making a life in more modern Lallybroch. Things move slowly, but beautifully. I have learned to expect that from DG, and she is so good at it that I enjoy the details and the history and the true-to-life characters (knowing that she is as historically accurate as possible). But in this book it was way TOO slow.
And the last couple hundred pages (the ending?) were just strange. First things slow down so much that pages and pages are devoted to reminiscing and revisiting the past and death and... (well I can't tell you everything!) Then it switches so that the story & people move so fast I can't keep up. And the turn-about surprises are SO surprising that I have a hard time believing them. I'm left with a feeling of `where did that come from?' and `why did that happen?' and `you've got to be kidding me!' The end was hugely dissatisfying, and yet that was (to me) where the real story was. The good stuff was glossed over.
So while DG is still one of the masters of the written word and I will probably fork out another $30 for her next book, I overall am rather disappointed. I feel like she is more interested in showing all the neat historical details she has learned than in telling a story. She has lost the story. And that makes me so sad because I have spent something like 16 or 17 years following these characters and being invested in their final outcome (we all know it comes back to that ghost watching Claire brush her hair). Please DG, go back to telling us their story rather than showing us what it was like to live in the eighteenth century.
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404 of 425 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
I don't know whether to give this book one star or five!, September 28, 2009
OMG! I just got to the end of the book... I can't say I finished the book, I'll just say that I got to the end of it.
Loose ends are loose ends, but Diana.... what is this about? I read this on my e-reader and I kept paging back and forth, trying to find the rest of it, thinking, "This can't be over. There's no ending!" It leaves far too many characters hanging with life or death situations, far too many conversations in mid-sentence. It's worse than a soap opera!
And let's talk continuity, here. Does she even have an editor? At the end of the last book, Jamie stood with John Grey, watching Brianna and William in the street. In this book, Jamie claims not to have set eyes on William since he was 12. There are about a half a dozen major continuity conflicts in this story that would have been really easy to fix, if anyone was paying attention.
Now I love Diana's characters and her writing and I get so wrapped up in her stories that it threatens the rest of my ability to function in life, but this ended so strangely that I'll be jarred and marred for days!
I enjoyed reading this book and I'll buy her next one, but I recommend that no one read this one until the next one is available. Leaving us hanging here, for possibly years until the next one comes out, is too upsetting.
SPOILER ALERT: THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS
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232 of 247 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A little too much left hanging, but ...., September 24, 2009
I found the book a wee bit slow to get started, and a tiny bit choppy. But that's because the main character's lives have changed dramatically, and the whole *family* is no longer on *The Ridge*. But once I got into the flow of the story, I found myself reading faster and faster to find out what happened next, which means I'll have to go back and reread it to catch nuances.
But there were some story lines that left me thinking *why*? Why reintroduce a character and then not have that character have any more to do in the story ( I am not naming that character so as not to spoil it for others#.
Another reviewer mentioned why adding Lord John and William into the mix, and not just concentrating on Jamie & Claire's story. Well, then we'd only have half the book we have now, and probably half the total number of books to begin with if their lives aren't fleshed out. And once into the full series of book you want to know what's going on with the extended family, who was doing what with who. And Wlliam isn't just a nobody.
But as I read faster towards the end, I began to think that all the time & effort spent on the story around Ft Ticonderoga, while interesting, left the ending not as well fleshed out by comparison. As if the ending was rushed in the writing. I really felt there ought to have been another 200 pages to flesh out what was happening.
And then the ending. There are quite a few *cliff hangers* at the end. But. But, I am still hooked. And beg Ms Gabaldon to start the next #will it be the last?) book as soon as possible. Cause I need to know!
All told, I love The Outlander series. I love books that are this long and this interesting. That we get to see a love story and lives fleshed out as well as Ms Gabaldon does. Hopefully she will continue the great work.
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