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kaykins's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
I LOVED the first Wilderness book, which was a 5 star for me. This sequel was painfully slow and boring for me to read. It took me a week and I fell asleep more than once. The Scottish adventure felt like a strange side story and I was disappointed. I just started the third book and am already so much more interested in the first 16 pages. Honestly, you could probably look up the highlights from book 2 and just skip to the next one altogether.
halynah's review
5.0
Excellent sequel - much better than the first book! I'm glad that I decided to read the second book despite not being overly impressed by the first one. To sum it all - historical fiction doesn't get better than that.
haileswhales's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
susanbrooks's review
2.0
Cardboard. I really wanted to like this book but it just never came alive for me. The characters seemed like cardboard cutouts. No fair comparing them to Gabaldon's Jamie & Claire - but they're no Jamie & Claire.
rebelbelle13's review
2.0
Perhaps my expectations going into this novel were a little too high. After all, I absolutely LOVED Donati's first in this series, Into The Wilderness. I found this novel to be boring and lacking. It took them 400 pages to get to the titular "distant shore". Very little happened in the lead up to Elizabeth and Nathaniel's arrival in Scotland- we were introduced to some new characters, Nathaniel and his father got tossed in jail. They escaped, Elizabeth and her entourage (Curiosity, Hannah, and her two new babies) follow them to Canada. They all get on boats bound for Scotland. They play musical boats. And they eventually arrive after a ridiculously long, drawn out voyage. Things finally pick up after they arrive in Scotland, and I was interested for the last 250 pages.
This novel feels like a side-story. In the scheme of things, it really changes nothing of Nathaniel and Elizabeth's narrative. They don't gain anything, they don't lose anything. None of the characters do any real growing. The whole thing just feels superfluous, and absolutely depends on the reader having read Into The Wilderness. There is very little romance here, and when I did come across a passage or two, I found that it only meant something because I found myself referring to the characters and their development in the first novel.
It was written well, just like the first in the series, but there just wasn't much here. It felt like a lot of padding- and the Scottish made it all the more difficult to understand. I will be reading the third in this series, Lake in the Clouds, because I've heard good things- and now that I've slogged through this one, I think I deserve it.
This novel feels like a side-story. In the scheme of things, it really changes nothing of Nathaniel and Elizabeth's narrative. They don't gain anything, they don't lose anything. None of the characters do any real growing. The whole thing just feels superfluous, and absolutely depends on the reader having read Into The Wilderness. There is very little romance here, and when I did come across a passage or two, I found that it only meant something because I found myself referring to the characters and their development in the first novel.
It was written well, just like the first in the series, but there just wasn't much here. It felt like a lot of padding- and the Scottish made it all the more difficult to understand. I will be reading the third in this series, Lake in the Clouds, because I've heard good things- and now that I've slogged through this one, I think I deserve it.
teuliano's review
4.0
I've enjoyed both books in this series. I like the characters, particularly the two main ones, and their relationship. they are well-drawn and strong.