I heard about this book a couple of years ago, and because it is a very large, thick book and I didn’t have the time for it back then so I put it off. But since the show came and turned out to be a pretty good TV series I was a bit curious to figure out how well written the actual novel is.
This novel follows our main character Claire and all who is a combat nurse in the war, and she married her husband Frank before the war started, but they have been separated for several years, as they both have served in different places. And when the war is over they decide to go for a second honeymoon in Scotland. While they are staying near the place which has a circle of standing stones, Claire who has an interest in plants and their medicinal uses. So one day while she was exploring and looking for different plants she can study, but somehow the stones end up transporting her in 200 years into the past. So she goes from the 1940’s to 1740’s, and she popped up in the middle of the battle which is going on between some Scottish clan and some British people. And she basically was taken captive by the Scottish clan, and they think that she is dressed in a funny way and speaks in a funny way, so she got to be a British spy. But there is a guy in their group who is pretty badly wounded and since Claire being nurse and having a good knowledge of plants ends up healing him and because of that clan start to trust her.
I will give Outlander 4 stars out of 5, because I definitely enjoyed the story telling of it, but the just didn’t loved it. I specially didn’t loved it as much as I thought I would love it, considering how everybody talks about this book. And the way this book is hyped is kind of misrepresentation of what this book is actually about.
Lot of people are talking about this book and they seem to focus on romance of it and I was under the impression that Jamie is the book boyfriend and I also thought that this novel is going to be pretty romance heavy which it isn’t. Don’t get me wrong, there is romance but it is only one small fraction of the story and in fact the story line is much darker than I was expecting.
The writing of this novel is a very great story telling experience, the writer knows how to make reader feel like and at parts everything plays out in so vivid details in your head which is the strength of outlander. This is a story about somebody’s life so it is not exactly plot centric all the time, a lot of big event happen but to me the really charm is the characters.
Overall, I felt this book is a bit too long and at times it is not very action driven and I found myself getting bored and even frustrated.