#gabaldon

One of my favorite scenic road.

Review on Diana Gabaldon's Dragonfly in Amber

A little more than a week ago I finished the second book in Gabaldon's Outlander series but I've procrastinated this review a little bit because I've been so hooked with Voyager. Regardless, here is my little insight on Dragonfly in Amber;

The book hits of with an incredibly powerful and hooking start, presenting us with a Claire 20 years ahead from the protagonist we knew she was. Her age is the least of surprises once we find out not only that she has a daughter, who is starting her twenties, but that she is in 1968! Us, the audience, are immediately thrown off our seats with a tsunami of questions. Why is she in the future?! Isbher daughter Jamie's?! What the f*ck is happening?! Gabaldon plays with this game of uncertainty for the first part of the book, until she decides that it is time for Claire to tell the story.

Different from the first book, this book and the other ones to come does not limit itself to Claire's PoV. Remember I said I didn't really like first person narrators too much? Well I have to ironically admit that I almost had a heart attack when I saw that the book opened in third person with the PoV of a character we are merely being introduced to. But don't worry folks! Claire owns most of the book's narration in this case.

After this amazing start, the book slows down as abruptly as a car hitting the breaks at full speed. The second part begins with Claire taking us to the events of the past on how she and Jamie reached France to stop the Bonnie Prince Charles from being able to start the Jacobite revolution that would lead to the death of thousands of Scots. Although the Paris plot has some mind-blowing events and a handful of interesting Characters, it feels quite dull and slow in comparison to all the adventures the reader lived in book 1. Whereas Outlander was full of sword fights and runaways and the first sparks of love, the Paris plot of ADiA is more based on diplomacy, mind games and settling as a family. It is fairly interesting, but in my opinion could have been much shorter.

Eventually things move back to Scotland, and a small part of the book is peacefully spent in Lallybroch. I swear this place is like a safe haven for Claire and Jamie, for most of the times they spend in it are often too sweet and wholesome that readers won't be able to prevent biting their lips each flutter of a heart (and believe me you'll feel many flutters).

And then, the Jacobite rebellion suddenly surprises you when you thought everything was solved. And things get spicy fast as the war unfolds.

By this point the reader grows scare. We know Claire is going to end up traveling back to the future, but what made her? Once we found out what, our eyes tear up because it is not the cause we'd ever think would be.

But the book does not end there. We stay with our 40 yr old Claire who is still attached to her valiant and stubborn Scot from the past. And we find out that 20 years after Culloden he still lived, closing with an open ending that leaves Claire with a tough decision to make by the third book.

Dragonfly in Amber doesn't fail to show what an outstanding writer Diana Gabaldon is. It experiments with really sorrowful and complicated themes and digs even deeper into Jamie and Claire's relationship adding more complexity to it making it more dimensional and giving it the ups and downs marriage implies. I just believe it shouldn't be as long as it is.

Rating: 7.5/10