This is one of those books that initially starts off in a rather shallow and directionless manner, yet manages to be somewhat entertaining. However, as the story progresses, it quickly becomes puke-worthy and reaches a point where it's ready to be trashed and forgotten. In fact, I've already begun to forget the details, so I'll simply mention briefly what I detested the most about it.

First and foremost, according to Gabaldon, it's considered perfectly normal for a modern woman to have no other purpose in life than to be a good wife. Such a regressive view is truly astonishing, especially considering this was written just 20 or so years ago. The same goes for the character of Jamie, who seems to be only interested in being intimate with his wife as frequently as possible.

Secondly, Gabaldon claims that bigamy is not a sin. In fact, it's so acceptable that it's even sanctioned by a Catholic priest! Her reasoning is that when you travel back in time and marry a second husband, it doesn't count as cheating on your original husband since he wasn't even born yet. It's a rather convoluted and absurd justification.

Thirdly, the book portrays gay people as vile creatures whose only pleasure in life is rape and torture. This is a highly offensive and inaccurate stereotype. It was quite mean-spirited of Gabaldon to make her caricature villain gay simply to fulfill her kinky BDMS fantasies. Coincidentally, the other supposed villain in the book was also gay.

Fourthly, the idea that beating your wife is okay when you're presented as a kind-hearted, romantic, loving, and respectful hero is completely unacceptable. You can't have it both ways. Either you're a loving and respectful partner or you're a wife-beater. There's no middle ground. Additionally, I find it hard to believe that even in a savage era, all husbands resorted to beating their wives.

Fifthly, the book suggests that being beaten by your husband is easily forgivable and forgettable for a modern feisty woman like Claire (although she's not actually that feisty, but believes she is!). The sooner she can forgive and forget, the better, as she can then have make-up sex afterwards. This is a rather disturbing and unhealthy message.

Finally, dressing up a ridiculous story filled with sex, rape, and torture as a historical time travel book is a poor ploy. It doesn't work. I feel cheated and disgusted for having endured this. I only decided to finish it out of curiosity to see where the story was going. And what a disappointment it was! It went nowhere! Well, actually, it ended with more sex. What else could I have expected?

Let the kinkiness continue for those who enjoy it, but I'll no longer be a part of this pornographic show.

Freaking Goodreads tricked me into deleting my review. Luckily I had a backup copy. GOOD TRY!!!

Sorry guys. I know a lot of my friends liked this book, although a lot did hate it as well. It seemed a pretty even split, but I'm going to fall on the side of HATED.

I did not like the main character, Claire. I found her irritating and selfish. For a nurse, she knows surprisingly little about childbearing, apparently even after being present for 3 births. For example, she is unsure if women in labor should be walking. She also referred to a man with a degenerative disease as not a whole man. Classy. Then, for her to go all weak in the knees and nauseous over a dead body MINUTES after she stabs a man in the throat with no remorse. Come the FUCK on. At least be consistent.

Onto the "hot highlander" or love interest, Jaime or Jamie or I don't even care! It took 200 pages to discover who the love interest was, which is WAY too long. But I digress. After reading about him spanking his wife as punishment in front of the menfolk and screaming at his sister for being a "whore", I was about done with him. Especially since just before beating his own wife, he had taken a beating for a young girl because he felt it would scar her. Don't extend the same courtesy to your wife... and she is too dumb to call him on it.

And then there is the sex. 400 pages of it. Sex in bed, sex in the field, sex on a rock, sex in a barn, sex in a haystack, sex by the river, sex in front of a group of men, sex in front of a child, sex on the floor, sex after murder. Let me tell you I'm glad someone didn't smack me on the back when I was reading this book or my eyes would have been stuck in the rolling position for the rest of my life. Oh look they are within the general vicinity of each other. Here we go again.

Granted the author did put a lot of work into research, and congratulations on making a book about time travel believable. But seriously, if you had trimmed this maybe by 200 pages or made somewhat of an interesting plot (bad guys are all gay... what is up with THAT?), I might have added a star. Not feeling it. Cross posted at Kaora's Corner.