Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

***Spoilers - please don't read if you want to avoid me giving away some narrative points in this novel*** I love this Outlander series and enjoyed being with the characters through this telling, but I agree that it was a disappointing read for these reasons: 1) Rape as the go-to tension builder/plot point. I was starting to feel this before this novel, but WiMOHB takes it to a new level. Look, I get that there are lots of rapists in the world, but when every bad guy tries to rape every main female character in the story, it does't just get old, it diminishes the impact of the violence and violation of rape. Jamie was violently tortured and raped. Claire was sexually assaulted in France and watched as her companion was violently raped on a street, then she was forced to barter sex with the King to save Jamie's life after he attacked his male rapist in France. Fergus was forced to prostitute himself as a poor urchin in France. Brianna was raped, then she had some kind of weird relationship with her rapist, which I never understood, and led to her being put in danger and almost being sold into slavery (where she was again physically assaulted as a potential buyer "assessed" her person). Claire was beaten, sexually assaulted by multiple men and then raped by a complete stranger. And in this novel, Brianna is forced to strip and be touched by Rob Cameron, who intends to rape her, but she grabs him by the balls (literally) and disables him before he can finish the deed (it's still a sexual assault...if this was supposed to be cathartic, like, look she can fight back and defend herself now, it was not). A new character, Jane, who was sold into sexual slavery as a 10 year old, was violated again and again as a whore, forced to endure anal rape by a British Captain who she finally kills when he pays to rape and assault her 11 year old sister. And finally, upon returning to the Ridge, Claire miraculously encounters the apparent sole survivor of her gang assault and the one man who technically "fully" raped her, and decides to try to forgive him for his crimes, only to have Jamie find out and presumably kill him (it happens "off screen" as it were and is only discussed after the fact by Jamie and Claire). I find this excessive use of rape and sexual assault disturbing, and frankly, lazy. It diminishes my enjoyment of the books, and the impact the stories have on the reader. If you have a series and one person gets cancer, it's powerful and devastating. If every freaking character in the novel gets cancer, it's ridiculous. 2) Meandering and disjointed plot. It's fine to have multiple threads or stories going on in a novel, as long as the author is sure to wrap each one up by the end of the book and tie them into a common theme/structure. It's not okay to leave major plot threads hanging in between books, especially when said books come about 1/2 decade apart. And nothing really happens in this book. It ties up previously loose ends, it describes a few battles. Some couples who were already together get married. Some women get pregnant. A lot of main characters are gravely injured, but miraculously survive without much ill effect (I'm getting tired of this go to tension builder as well - someone who is shot, stabbed or otherwise wounded in that time period doesn't recover to 100% like these people do. And let's not forget how old Jamie and Claire are - it's ridiculous how often DG hurts them and then brushes them off like it's nothing). But, there is no main thread or cohesive storyline pulling the action forward. We're on a timeline now. Here's what happens between Jamie coming back from Scotland and when he and Claire make it back to the Ridge. It's like an 800 page Christmas letter ("here's what's been going on in our year").