Outlander by Diana Gabaldon {Goodreads}
Published by Delta in 1998
1945. Claire
Randall is in Scotland, enjoying a second honeymoon with her husband Frank
Randall after the Second World War, when she touches some standing stones and
finds herself in 18th century Scotland. She doesn’t understand what
happened to her or why for that matter but she knows she has to survive in a
very tumultuous period.
I feel everybody and their mother know already
about Outlander, either the books or
the TV show and if you don’t, well… have you been living under a rock? I knew
about the show even before it premiered because I’m a huge fan of Tobias
Menzies (Frank/Jack Randall). However, I watched some episodes first before
deciding if I wanted to read the books. I liked what I saw and so when they
went into hiatus I told myself I was gonna pick up the book and read it. I
didn’t. Until now. And honestly, I’m glad I waited a bit longer.
The
craziness that followed the show was insane and of course, with that, comes the
hype and I tend to be disappointed by hyped up books. Now though there are both
positive and negative reviews and thanks to that I had no expectations
whatsoever. And I had a great time reading this. It was beautiful and painful
at the same time. It’s very much focused on the characters and their lives so
if you like character-driven novels then give it a go. But it does have as well
its dose of action, which by the way it’s very well written and thank goodness,
not confusing at all.
Regarding
the writing style, I have to say I personally enjoyed it because it matches
Claire’s personality in my opinion. She’s a very pragmatic woman, quite
rational and so it’s the writing style. Sometimes I was confused as to why she
wasn’t losing her wits over having travelled to the past –let’s face it, if it
had happened to me, I would have completely lost it. It was as if she was very
“relaxed” with the situation and keeping a clear head around everything. But
that’s how Claire is. Of course there were moments when she collapsed emotionally,
I mean she’s human, but for most of the time she kept her cool.
Outlander is not just a historical fiction novel, it’s
also a romance and it has a lot of steamy scenes. Gabaldon doesn’t hold back so
if you’re not comfortable with explicit sex scenes don’t pick it up. I
personally have no problem with those. However, I might say I did have some issues
with Claire and Jamie’s relationship. Let’s face it, it isn’t perfect and
pretending it to be so it’s problematic in itself. I understand the time period
we’re dealing with and I know the image they had of women back then but there
were a lot of times when I felt like Jamie was forcing Claire and romanticizing
that kind of behaviour would be a huge mistake. There are many moments during
the story, not only when they are having sex, when I saw this problematic
behaviour and although I did enjoy the book, we can’t leave this out of the
conversation. I think it’s important to recognize this for what it is.
All in all,
I do recommend this if you enjoy historical fiction, are intrigued about
Scotland and don’t mind romance. It is a slow but steady read and I plan to
continue reading Claire story.