Outlander (Outlander #1)

outlander-book-cover

Outlander
by Diana Gabaldon

I’ve had a good friend talk about this book for years. Romance isn’t really a genre that I read. She had mentioned it had to do with time travel (briefly) and there was a lot of action and adventure in the Scottish Highlands. I still stayed away since romance isn’t a genre that I’m all that interested in. I don’t mind if romance is part of a bigger story, but I have never been into those bodice-ripping books that I used to see my mom read growing up. I used to go for the Edgar Allan Poe books that were on the bookshelf instead. What got me to finally read a romance? It was a genre that my Twitter book club (#1book140) decided to read. It was the pick for February, but I was still reading the January book so I didn’t get to this one late and missed most of the conversation. I’m still glad I read it though since it changed my mind. Not so much about romances, but at least about this series.

The novel starts out in 1945 where a former combat nurse, Claire,  is slowly getting to know her husband on their second honeymoon since they were separated for many years due to the war right after they were married.  While wandering in Scotland on their vacation, she touches a rock that sends her back in time by 200 years to the Scottish Highlands. Since it is unclear for some time what has happened to her, when she does realize it, she is far away from that rock and has no way to get back to her own time, if that is even the way to get back to where she belongs. She pretty much stuck living in a much different time.

What I enjoyed about the book was that Claire was already very independent woman in 1945 and does not care if she is not acting the way people think women should act in the past. She is very stubborn though and at times, selfish. It’s those stubborn, selfish acts that end up hurting some people, but she does eventually realize what she’s done.

The action scenes were really well written. For a long book, I read it fairly quickly since there was always some crazy mess Claire got herself into. I had to know what was happening next. For a good portion of the book, I wouldn’t have even classified it as a romance except that there is tons of sex in this book. It takes place all the time. These parts of the book were my least favorite, mostly because they could have been better written. I rolled my eyes at some of the descriptions, but then I’ve read better sex scenes in Clive Barker novels. Some scenes were quite sweet and I thought those were better.

There was one scene between Claire and Jamie that I had issues with when I read it. Jamie was very violent towards Claire and it almost had a misogynistic tone, but not quite. I could see the reasons why it happened (and to get into them would give too much away for those that haven’t read it), but did love that she fought back and was pissed about it for a long time. Then in one scene, she proclaimed she loved him and seemed to forget all about what had just happened to her. That’s when I had a big issue with it since it seemed like she played into the battered wife role who forgives the abusive husband because he really loves her. Later on, I was pleasantly surprised when she brought it up again since she obviously still had issues with it. They verbally fought and then talked it out before finally moving on with both sides understanding each other more. That’s when I could finally move on too.

The book is a violent one, especially what happens with Jamie towards the end of it. It is pretty gruesome for a romance book. I would almost forget it was supposed to be a romance first and foremost until one of those  sex scenes popped up again. Even though I still am not really interested in the romance genre as a whole, I am interested enough in this book series to want to continue reading more of it.

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