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Cross Stitch by Diana Gabaldon (view source)
Revision as of 09:40, 19 August 2017
, 09:40, 19 August 2017no edit summary
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|comment=I agree with this review. It's an easy book to pick up and put down, without gettig confused or forgetting the plot.
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|name=Amie Slavin
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|comment=I thoroughly enjoyed this book while on holiday in Scotland and visiting historic castles. However, it is, truthfully, pretty awful; a definite guilty pleasure. Way too much sex, pretty cynically included on the ‘sex sells’ line. It wasn’t badly written, just way too plentiful, and woe betide the heroine if I ever get hold of her, educating her wonderful man to take his weight on his elbows. Excuse me but…won’t over-share further lol. I loved the researched elements, social history, politics, landscape, customs. It often felt like a predictable chain of researched episodes strung together any old how though. I loved reading the witch episode, but groaned out loud when it turned up bang on cue, just after I’d been muttering to myself “Hmmm, we haven’t done witches yet, have we Diana; 3, 2, 1…’. Still, hard to satisfy a reader like me who loves the social history, without letting the research show; she’d have to be out of the ordinary to achieve it, and sadly she is not. Jamie was deliscious, of course, but our love for him is based on a bold outline of character, not skilful development of character, and Clare is horribly nasty to him, and to everyone, I thought. Gullible in the extreme when befriended by her known enemy, yet rude and snappy throughout the book, and I speak as an outspoken, feisty Feminist. I didn’t identify with her narky tone, especially when used on those engaged in risking their lives to save hers. The meeting with the monster was just stupid; inexcusable; ridiculous; cheap. The time anomily of Randall’s death was interesting, but left unaddressed, other than by a sort of “of well, never mind that; can’t be bothered” kind of tone; likewise the date given by the other possible future traveller; just left hanging. Are these things picked up in later books? Given these loose hanging threads, I was sad to finish the book in fury, as I discovered the author, clearly loving her own imagined skill as a pornographer, ended her narrative with yet more sex, rather than any meaningful tying up of the story, characters or subject matter. I’m sad to review in this very grumpy tone as I genuinely enjoyed the book; a lovely,, harmless companion on my Scottish holiday, giving a good flavour of English brutality, which is all too historical and despicable. Its faults are the reason I probably won’t read more fiction by this rather cynical author; it was fun though, and Jamie is a darling, obvs! J
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