3/5 stars.
ebook, 784 pages.
Read from February 04 to March 20, 2014.
After many recommendations and a book club read, I finally got around to finishing Outlander. Unfortunately to all the major fans out there, I can’t say I’m raving about this book. I wouldn’t say that I liked this book but I didn’t fully dislike it either, hence the neutral rating. There was so much about this book that didn’t make sense to me or that I could relate to. I remember as a teenager listening to my Mom talking so fondly about this book but when I asked to read it (at the ripe old age of sixteen) and she wouldn’t let me. She feared the content would be too graphic and that the I might be traumatized by the amount of sexual and abusive violence or something. Needless to say, I am glad that I didn’t read this book as a teenager or I may have been severely horrified. With that also being said, I may have also appreciated the romance a bit more with my naïve teenage brain.
The premise of the story focuses on Claire, a nurse living in the 20th century who is separated from her husband and everything she knows and is somehow (and this was never fully described or given reason for in the book) magically transported to 17th century Scotland. You would think that this plot, the transportation, why she was sent back in time and the emotional turmoil something like this would cause on Claire would be the focal point of the book right? Well, it isn’t. Along comes Jamie, an extremely handsome, strapping, young (younger than her), fiery and red-headed Scottish solider who crosses paths with Claire when he is injured and requires the use of her healing skills. He saves her from a cruel Englishman suspecting her to be a spy (who is also a direct descendant of her husband back in the 20th century) and brings her back to a castle where the two of them are cared for under another Scottish family.
Both Jamie and Claire hit it off right away and what ends up happening is that they are forced to marry in order to protect both of their skins from the English. Now you would think that would be a pretty tense scene, right? I mean Claire is already married but in a different time and she has told no one of how she came to be in Scotland, but the scene only vaguely touches on her tiny bit of turmoil before skipping to the consummation of their marriage. The rest of the book, well, it was pretty much just one sex scene after another with a loosely based plot to keep the characters moving. So the continuous sex scenes on top of sappy romance really got to me. Don’t get me wrong, sex is awesome! I just wanted more details about the plot and for the writing to really get to the raw difficult choices and struggles that Claire had to make. She makes cheating on her husband seem like the easiest thing in the world by justifying that he technically hadn’t been born yet. I also don’t feel that she tried all that hard to attempt to get back home. She seemed pretty dandy in the 17th century and really didn’t question her position as much as I would imagine someone in her shoes to be. To make matters even sillier, Jamie was a virgin before he married Claire. Seriously? Where is the realism in that? A good looking Scottish man in the 17th century a virgin?! That’s ridiculous. What made Jamie even more unrealistic was how soft and in-tune he was with his own feelings as well as Claire’s emotions and feelings. I can’t see that a warrior of his status, regardless of his temper, got to where he was by being in-tune with his feelings and those of women, and especially by being a virgin.
There was a lot of sexual violence in this book. Surprisingly, the worst of it happened to Jamie in the end and Claire pretty much remained untouched, despite some of the situations she was in. As a reader, this content didn’t bother me so much, but I could see how it could be pretty disturbing to some readers. To add to the violence, Jamie also took at least three-major beatings by the end of the book. Yup, three.
All of these silly details really show to me that this book was written by an older married woman, for older married women who would rather be swept up in romance they can’t have instead of reading a captivating plot full of psychological turmoil and realism. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing. I read books to escape too, just not romantically (maybe erotically haha). Many writers make good money writing romances and the popularity of this book says enough in and of it’s self, it just didn’t work for me. It makes me a bit sad as I see so much potential for this book. The author has some good ideas, very likeable (even if unrealistic and shallow) characters and reasonably decent writing. It’s just too long, too vague on the emotion and details of the plot and too romantic. Sorry Diana, I won’t be reading any more of your work.
The Pluviophile Writer 
One thought on “Outlander by Diana Gabaldon”