Book Review: Go Tell the Bees that I am Gone by Diana Gabaldon

 

Goodreads Summary: The past may seem the safest place to be . . . but it is the most dangerous time to be alive. . . .
Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall were torn apart by the Jacobite Rising in 1743, and it took them twenty years to find each other again. Now the American Revolution threatens to do the same.

It is 1779, and Claire and Jamie are reunited with their daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their children on Fraser's Ridge. Having the family together is a dream the Frasers had thought impossible.

Yet even in the North Carolina backcountry, the effects of war are being felt. Tensions in the Colonies are great and local feelings run hot enough to boil Hell's tea kettle. Jamie knows loyalties among his tenants are split, and it won't be long until the war is on his doorstep.

Brianna and Roger have their own worry: that the dangers that provoked their escape from the twentieth century might catch up to them. Sometimes they question whether risking the perils of the 1700s—among them disease, starvation, and impending war—was indeed the safer choice for their family.

Not so far away, young William Ransom is still coming to terms with the discovery of his true father's identity—and thus his own—and Lord John Grey has reconciliations to make, and dangers to meet . . . on his son's behalf, and his own.

Meanwhile, the Revolutionary War creeps ever closer to Fraser's Ridge. And with the family finally, together, Jamie and Claire have more at stake than ever before.

Goodreads Ratings: 4.56 stars with over 8,000 ratings

Genre Listing: Historical Fiction, Romance, Time Travel, Fantasy, Historical Romance

Reviews on the Series: Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, An Echo in the Bone, Written in My Own Heart's Blood

Goodreads Challenge: 44/50

2021 Reading Challenge: #49 Read a book with an interesting cover font (Find the entire challenge  here) 

Book Review:

Hello, Readers! I hope everyone is doing well and getting to spend time with loved ones through the holiday season. This will probably be a shorter blog post as I need to work on my final two projects for Grad School (Yay!) and get ready to visit family for Christmas. I'm hoping that I'll get back to doing more thorough reviews on books once I graduate. We shall see what 2022 brings, however.

I picked up Go Tell the Bees That I am Gone by Diana Gabaldon the day it launched because, of course, I did. I wasn't really planning on reading it right away, though. My intention was that I'd pick a bunch of short books to try and get to 50 books. I think I'll be happy to get two more books in to round out the year at this point. Also, if you weren't aware, Tress and I launched the 2022 Reading Challenge. You can find it here. This is the 5th year for the challenge, so we did some special things with the categories to celebrate. 

So as for 'Bees,' as I've been calling it in my head. I was really excited to jump back into the Outlander world. And because I binged the last of the series last year, I felt like I got my bearings pretty quickly. Also, Diana Gabaldon always does a great job of recapping, making it easier to remember. 

I tend to forget how long Claire and Jamie's journey has been through the 9 books. So it's always a little odd for me to read about their ages in these later books. This book is the first one that really dawned on me that they are getting older, making me sad. 

There were a lot of life-changing events that happened (trying to keep it spoiler-free) that I thought were interesting. Unfortunately, I felt like a lot of it was really predictable. I feel like it was essentially day-to-day Fraser Ridge shenanigans that were building up to some more significant thing, and when that happened, I wasn't really all that surprised. It felt a little anti-climactic, and I was left asking, "that was it?" I was also talking to a friend who had listened to the audiobook and felt the wording seemed choppy. I don't know if I would have noticed that if she hadn't pointed it out, but now that I think about it, I wholeheartedly agree. It felt less poetic and rushed. It was like there were so many characters to catch up on that none of them could really get the full attention that they would have otherwise done. 

I still loved and enjoyed the book. I assume there will be a 10th book, and I'm eager to read it. Bees was still an enjoyable book. However, it felt like it was just a transitionary story to something bigger. A large part of the action is the last 25% of the story, which were events previous books built up to. How that something actually happened didn't seem nearly as monumental as I expected it to. I think there was a lot of foreshadowing earlier in the book that gave it away. There's honestly a lot more I actually want to say on this book, but because it's so new. I'll leave it at, giving it 3 moons, because while I loved it, I also feel that I got overly excited and was a little let down by some of the foreshadowings and rushed content. It made it feel like instead of telling the story to its full potential, the focus was just getting through it and on to the next one from a writing standpoint.