Outlander - A Book Review

I had had this book recommended to me by so many people who gushed and praised and practically inspired nausea with how much they adored the entire series and it was sooo incredible and how could I not have read them, etc. etc. that I felt I must be missing out on the next great thing. Usually these conversations (often with complete strangers while wandering the aisles of Borders or Barnes and Noble) have a good payoff - it's how I met Tempe Brennan (though later our relationship stagnated and I had to tell her that I could no longer spend my time with her, it was sad but necessary. "Sometimes people just grow apart," I told her, "It's not you, it's me. I can see you're headed for success, after all you have a TV show now, how great is that? But really, I just feel we want different things and it's not fair to you to keep going." There were some tears on her part, I think, but there are so many people out there who love her, I'm just one $10-spot of many. I doubt she even thinks about me anymore.) It's how I met Hester & William Monk and Thomas & Charlotte Pitt (we're taking a little break too right now, actually, though it's not a permanent break like it was with Tempe. I just needed some time and I thought each of them needed some time to focus on their marriages and, hopefully, get things back to where they were when we met and I swore that they would forever be my friends) it's how I met China Bayles (I still love her to pieces and wait, anxiously, by the phone for her to call and tell me of her latest adventures. Of course, since I'm a bit of a cheapskate, she puts me farther down on the list than people who are willing to shell out for hardcovers), and the list goes on and on. And these are the recommendations of complete strangers (or random stumbles across). So the recommendations of friends - well, I knew it would be love.

So I trundled myself off to the bookstore in search of the 600-page answer to the current yearning in my heart for Scottish Highland romance and adventure that I knew, just knew, was going to change the way I thought about romance as a genre (which I already love) and historical romance in particular (which, honestly, I had basically put myself on hiatus from until such time as my friend Michelle gets her book published. Hurry up, Michelle! I know your book is going to rock. But I figured a little dabble with an historical while I waited wasn't wrong - after all, how do you know when the hiatus should end if you're not testing the waters, right?)
I was giddy as a schoolgirl with the tome in my hands. I barely convinced myself to just buy the first one in the series, but my fingers lovingly stroked the backs of all the ones after with a whisper of a promise that they would be coming home with me soon. After all - this was the series, according to so many of my friends (and random strangers who saw me with it clutched in my arms and had to stop to tell me how much I would love it.) But, in the back of my mind, my little negative nelly voice was reminding me of the exploits with Queen Elizabeth and Jane Austen (not the author, I adore the books written BY Jane Austen, it's the ones where she's to be the heroine in a mystery that cause my throat to close and anaphalactic shock to set in) and the books - heresy of heresy - sitting unread on my shelf, doomed to gather dust for eternity (or until I decide to sell stuff on e-bay) without ever having been opened. Thus, the big, blue book and I exited the store, torn between skipping to the car and speeding home or finding a nice quiet seat in which to begin my adventure sooner.

Once home, I grabbed a drink and curled up on the loveseat in my library. Drink? Check. Blanket? Check. Puppy? Check. Check. Book? Check. I was ready to be transported to Scotland. I was ready to roam the hills and travel across generations through magical portals in the standing stones. I was ready for romance and love and the eternal conquering of good over evil.

I was not ready for Outlander.

Valiantly I read, and re-read, and re-re-read the first two chapters. Picking it up. Putting it down. Shifting to get more comfortable. Cleaning up the drink that spilled when I shifted. Taking the puppies out to pee. Getting comfortable again. I tried, I really, really tried to get into it. "That's ok," I told myself, "Sometimes it takes a little while to really hit it off. Friendships are tricky balances, give Claire a chance." And I did. I really, really did. But at the end of the day, I just don't like her. I can't be friends with someone who so willingly forgets the husband she has in one life to cavort with a younger - admittedly gorgeous, one might say swoonworthy - Scot whom she just met? Sure, she tried to say that she struggled with the idea, but even that didn't come across as real. It was as if she said to herself, "Well, I must pretend that I'm torn about this but, really, he's cute, I'm here, hubby's not and, well, actually hubby hasn't even been born yet so is it really cheating?" I'm sorry, if you have to try and bring time paradoxes into it to make adultery ok, well then it's not ok. I shouted at her, "But you're married. Be true. Don't be a hussy!" But to no avail. She went ahead and slept with Jamie, married him, then went on to describe how "making love" with Jamie was so much better than anything else. All the time I was shaking her by the shoulders saying, "You are married. You are cheating. It. Does. Not. Matter. If. The. Sex. Is. Good. It. Is. Wrong." She didn't - wouldn't - listen.

Then, she tried, sneaky girl, to make it all ok because she killed off the ancestor of her husband before he had a chance to procreate. Yeah, he was evil. Definitely deserved to die. But was there remorse? Not really. She had 100% decided on her affair as the "one for her" - even if it meant that her husband in her real life had to die (or more realistically, never be born). Then she tries to complicate it with now she communes with his ghost? What. Ever.

Only reason to read the book? Descriptions of Scotland. Those are incredible. Plot aside (which is a BIG aside) Diana Gabaldon can write. She definitely transports you to Scotland and makes the characters real. Problem is, none of the characters are worth knowing.