July 8, 2014

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon - A Rant

Note: I know many people totally love this book, so if you think me ranting about it would spoil your day, don't read the review :) That's precisely why I've put "A Rant" subtitle to the post header.

Title: Outlander
Author: Diana Gabaldon
First published: 1991
Add it: Goodreads, The Book Depository
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

With an impressive 4.13 rating on Goodreads and so many recommendations, I expected this book to become my new favourite. There's time travel, Scotland, a strong female character, hot scots... I like all these things, but somehow them being put together by Gabaldon resulted in total crap. Well, maybe not TOTAL, but we'll get to it. Let's begin with the bad stuff, OK?

First, the book is sooo long! Generally, I love long books, but there'd better be something actually happening on all those pages. OK, there are a lot of adventures, battles and other things, all right, but they are all so monotonous! By the middle of the book I had an urge to yawn every time Jaime was hurt or Claire was abused. Again. Besides, this brings me to the next point: the abundance of unsettling and disgusting descriptions. I do realize that the time was not pretty, but some scenes in the prison and afterwards were totally unnecessary. Not that I cared by that time. In the second half of the book there were several action sequences in which I had no idea what was happening... And I didn't want to re-read to make sense of them. It's still a mystery to me how the prison escape was managed and how getting high on opium and fighting cured blood poisoning in the end.

My next problem with the book was sex scenes. I like me some good steamy sex in a book, and I do admit that some of them actually WERE good, but not for 200 pages non-stop! I'm not kidding, there's a part in the book in which they hardly do anything else. Again, I got bored. Besides, some stuff really disturbed me. Remember the scene when they have sex near the body of a soldier killed by Claire just before? Or that sex after a month on the verge of death. Seriously???

Even with all the aforementioned problems the book would be OK if I liked the characters. But Jaime is just some sickly-sweet ideal of a man, who everybody older than 12 years old should understand doesn't exist, and Claire... I didn't really care for her. I can't figure out why, but probably because her reactions to things happening around her are so unbelievable that I can't think of her as a real person.

Now to the positive moments, as promised :) The book is obviously well-researched and gives a nice overview of life in Scotland at that time. Although I'm not a specialist and I may be wrong here. Also, the dialogues are usually good and witty, and some even made me smile. Hmm.. That's probably all. Not much :)

In my book:
If you are not into hard-core "women's fiction", skip it! Spend some time NOT wanting to punch the characters in the face instead :)

13 comments:

  1. It's nice to actually see a negative review of this one, as most are typically glowing! I think there might be too much romance in it for me...

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    1. Yes, I'm surprised how many people like it! Well, tastes differ :) Too much romance, true!

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  2. I've always figured Outlander probably wouldn't be my kind of a thing. Now I KNOW! Thanks for saving me the trouble! :D

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  3. Yay, finally your review is here! I also gave the book an extra star, because overall it was kind of funny! But everything else was just one facepalm after another. The whole blood poisoning cure was so bad, I wanted to cry. Really? Really?! How does getting high and angry prevent limbs from being chopped off? Oh well... Great rant!

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    1. Thanks! I've put it off, because one needs a special mood for a good rant! Some homeless people partying under my window the night before did the thing :)) It's so unbelievable that the guy has survived all this! If all the next books are as ruthless to him, I really pity him :)) He'll be a ruin by the end of the series :)

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  4. It's not really gonna be very surprising that I had the same experience with half the book that I read. What with Outlander being so hyped up, I was so not ready for all the romance and sexytimes. Also don't fully get the appeal of Jaime - first of all he is probably a non-existend ideal yes, secondly for me personally men like that are boring. Claire... I got it that time travel is a shocking event and things will be out of ordinary, but if your love of life stays at "home time" and you hook up with another one with seemingly not even a good moral dilemma or very good reasons other than carnal instincts, then - I get it, and I don't mind reading it, but I really don't get what's with people all going OOOOOOOOOOH over this. Personally I felt really bad for this guy that was left home, most of the time.

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    1. Boring - yes! I wouldn't know what to talk about with such a guy. And I also pitied the one at home. When this Randall first appeared and was described as looking exactly like her husband I was expecting her to actually have an affair with him, facial similarity being her excuse. But logic has nothing to do with the storyline in the book :) Claire's reasons are a mystery for me. Most of the time I was just facepalming about her reactions and decisions :)

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    2. I love a good 'rant' and a piece of chocolate! It was fun reading your review :)

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  5. I've read either very good or very bad reviews of this series. Even though I like the premise, the amount of romance always stopped me from reading it, but I'll watch a few episodes now that they're making a tv show. It might be the kind of thing that works better on screen without the more superfluous parts.

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    1. I'm also going to try the show, as I totally agree sometimes the screen version is much better than the book, and I think Outlander adapts well to screem

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  6. I've wanted to read this book because it's been recommended so often and avoided it for that very same reason. Soooooo . . . after reading your review, I'm not giving into the temptation. No doubt I'd be frustrated and wonder why I even bothered starting it.

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    1. yes, I'm pretty sure it'll feel shallow for you. I wish I didn't give in to the hype and the recommendations!

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