You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
librarysue 's review for:
Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone
by Diana Gabaldon
888 pages of an engrossing, wandering account of the further adventures of Claire and Jamie Fraser, in volume 9 of the Outlander series. A first time reader would probably be lost in the bewildering array of characters, but those who have been following along since the first "Outlander" novel in 1991 will feel right at home. Gabaldon writes elegantly and well; her grasp of history brings each episode vividly to life. I enjoyed this thoroughly!
That said, this is truly a leisurely, rambling stroll through a fair amount American revolutionary history at this point: it has been quite some time since any of these books have followed the traditional story arc of exposition, mounting tension, turning point and resolution. This is quite literally a very long string of vignettes, loosely joined together. There are a number of very interesting characters that we get to know in this book: young Frances (Fanny), rescued from a brothel in a previous tale is one; I also found Agnes Cloudtree and Silvia Hardman and her daughters compelling, along with Elspeth Cunnngham, and the Mohawk Sachem, who don't get nearly enough page time in my opinion. I enjoyed the chapters in which Ian and Rachel traveled to see to the welfare of his first, Indian wife. But there are also characters and incidents that seemed incidental to the story (John Cinnamon, for one) that simply slowed things down, and there are some aggravating plot threads left dangling (what's the story with Fergus' supposed parentage? What happened to ex-slave Ulysses and his threats?) I guess you can't please everybody. If you are willing to dive into a full-immersion experience with a host of favorite characters and don't require immediate resolution, you'll love this. If you need things neatly tied up with a bow this will aggravate the heck out of you.
That said, this is truly a leisurely, rambling stroll through a fair amount American revolutionary history at this point: it has been quite some time since any of these books have followed the traditional story arc of exposition, mounting tension, turning point and resolution. This is quite literally a very long string of vignettes, loosely joined together. There are a number of very interesting characters that we get to know in this book: young Frances (Fanny), rescued from a brothel in a previous tale is one; I also found Agnes Cloudtree and Silvia Hardman and her daughters compelling, along with Elspeth Cunnngham, and the Mohawk Sachem, who don't get nearly enough page time in my opinion. I enjoyed the chapters in which Ian and Rachel traveled to see to the welfare of his first, Indian wife. But there are also characters and incidents that seemed incidental to the story (John Cinnamon, for one) that simply slowed things down, and there are some aggravating plot threads left dangling (what's the story with Fergus' supposed parentage? What happened to ex-slave Ulysses and his threats?) I guess you can't please everybody. If you are willing to dive into a full-immersion experience with a host of favorite characters and don't require immediate resolution, you'll love this. If you need things neatly tied up with a bow this will aggravate the heck out of you.