Diana Gabaldon's Drums of Autumn
These books are so dang long that by the time I get to the end of one, I can't remember if what happened in the beginning was in this book or the one before. Well, definitely Claire and Jamie settle in North Carolina in this one, so there's a lot more racism as they interact with various slaves and Native Americans. (And when I say racism, I don't just mean the characters, who are historically accurately racist, but Gabaldon's descriptions, written in the 1990s. She is really pushing the "noble savage" thing here. It's gross.) Plus, the rapiness is back! I thought now that Claire was in her 40s, we'd be ok, but now there's a nubile young daughter time traveling as well, and she flat out gets raped (spoilers). Plus all the men are, like, "brutes"--which I think Gabaldon means to be romantic, but really just has me wanting to call the modern day cops for domestic violence. I really wonder about her life sometimes. The sad thing is, I still enjoy reading this books (despite their length--each could easily be like 300 pages shorter) and want to know what ridiculous things will happen next to these ridiculous characters. But I really can't recommend them in good faith. B.
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