Berkley Publishing, February 26, 2016.
Three Stars
Emma is twenty-nine and recently divorced. She is
unfulfilled by her work, and she’s well on her way to an early mid-life crisis.
Her solution is to quit her job (well, actually she got fired), sell all of her
belongings, and travel to Scotland to find her own version of Jamie Fraser, the
fictional hero of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander
novels. He is her perfect man in every way, so she tries to be more like his
love interest, Claire, beginning with an attempt to follow Claire’s journey
through Scotland – the path Claire took when she first travelled back in time
to meet Jamie.
Although Emma is supposedly almost thirty, she
generally acts like a child. In fact, this reads like a millennial version of Eat, Pray, Love – Emma is silly and naïve,
and it’s no surprise that she repeatedly finds herself in awkward and sometimes
devastating situations when she chooses to trust the wrong people. Emma’s first
several mishaps were funny and endearing, but it just never ended, and she didn’t
seem to learn from her mistakes. This is definitely not a profound story of
self-discovery – at best, it is a light beach read, not that there’s anything
wrong with that, if it’s what you’re in the mood for.
Emma arrives in Scotland with no real plan, aside
from the map found in the front of her well-used copy of Outlander. In her random search for her own Jamie Fraser, she seems
to be only focused on his physical appearance, instead of the more important
qualities that the fictional Jamie possesses. When she does find a man that she
thinks might fit the mold, he ends up being manipulative and emotionally
abusive – but it’s fine, as long as she has her Jamie. Emma is on a quest for love,
but instead she should be trying to find herself, which would have been much
more empowering.
The structure of the novel is gimmicky, as Emma writes
blog posts about her travels, and various friends, family and fans respond in
the “comments” section. What I did like was how she omitted lots of important
details in her blog to make things sound more glamourous and fun than they
actually were – then she described the true events afterwards. It shows how
everything you read on the internet has been manipulated to show a certain side
of things. I just wish Emma had used the real life events to develop more as a
character – even though she announces that she has changed in the end, it doesn’t
ring true.
This novel is clearly trying to capitalize on the
success of Gabaldon’s books, especially with the recent popularity of the Outlander television series. I think it
is definitely necessary to be an Outlander
fan if you plan on reading Finding Fraser
– I don’t think it would make any sense at all without the background of the
original series. The author is attempting to imitate Gabaldon’s quirky humour,
but it isn’t quite successful. What makes Jamie and Claire so special in the
original is that they don’t fit the tropes of the historical romance genre –
and when they do, it is with an ironic wink. In contrast, Emma and her story
are the definition of chick lit, and I just didn’t find it interesting. This
was a two-star read for me, but I’m bumping it up to three because I think many
Outlander fans who want a light, easy
read will enjoy this.
I received this novel from Berkley Publishing and
NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
No comments:
Post a Comment