Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Outlander (published in the UK as Cross Stitch) by Diana Gabaldon
Hurtled back through time more than two hundred years to Scotland in 1743, Claire Randall finds herself caught in the midst of an unfamiliar world torn apart by violence, pestilence, and revolution and haunted by her growing feelings for James Fraser, a young soldier.
This was my second attempt to read this book. After failing to finish it the first time (I barely made it back in time with Claire as I remember), I decided to use one of my Audible.com book points to get the unabridged audiobook and try again.

I got futher this time and at points, did enjoy the book, but very close to halfway through I decided I had had enough and stopped. Essentially, the book just seemed to go on and on and on without making a whole lot of progress. It felt to me as if all Claire did was behave stupidly and get into trouble, get resuced by Jamie and then find reasons to yell at him like a shrew until they had (rough but fantastic) make up sex. I have many other things I'd rather spend my time on and decided Diana Gabaldon and I should part company.

I know there are people who just adore this book and its sequels - lots of them, both people and sequels - but it's failed to work for me twice, so I think it is time to accept that that Gabaldon isn't an author who works for me. A pity, as I still think the concept is brilliant, but the execution doesn't hold my attention.

Outlander
Diana Gabaldon
Did Not Finish

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love these books, but I can understand where you're coming from. I think I just absolutely fell for Jamie. Then I introduced my friends to Jamie, and they fell for him too :) We actually refer to the books as 'the jamie books'. Claire... well she's just taking us along for the ride I think and giving us the opportunity to, well, fall for Jamie.

Kerry said...

I've heard other people say that too, so maybe its a big factor. Much as I liked Jamie, I was still too frustrated with Claire. To each her own, I guess.