#5: Read "Outlander"

Such a respectable cover 

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon is by no means a new novel; it’s been around the block a few times. I can’t remember where I first heard of this book series, but it seems that tons of people (ahem... women) have read it and loved it. I’d been told that it has it all - time-travel, romance, Scottish rogue-ness, adventure, sword fights... I’d also been told that it is highly addictive, and who doesn’t love not being able to put a book down?

Finally I got around to checking Outlander out, as an audiobook – Audible.com sucked me in a few years ago. As a side rant - I'm now obsessed with audiobooks; you get so much more reading done when you're listening instead of opening up a physical book. Reading a book requires your total attention; listening to a book means you can multitask. Read while running on the elliptical, laying in bed with your eyes closed, or driving! It's the best. 

Well, unfortunately for me and my $14.99, Outlander was awful. I couldn’t even finish it. So much wasted potential...You might suggest that if I’d read it the traditional way, I would have liked it, but I don’t think so. The problem is that it is boring and misleading. 

So there’s this beautiful lady and she is a nurse who served in WWII. The book opens with her sexing up her husband, who seems kinda creepy and weird, on holiday in Scotland. Something something about a magic glen or whatever, and suddenly she’s in the Scottish Highlands in the 1700’s.  

The next 6 hours of listening are mostly her being confuzzled about her situation, then quickly accepting it, meeting a bunch of Scottish dudes who think she’s a major slooot (they are right), and then shacking up and getting married to the most honourable, ridiculously good-looking one. And that’s the rest. They shag up in a bedroom above a tavern; they shag outside in a field; they shag while in camp with a bunch of other sleeping dudes. And so on. 

There’s also something about how her original husband’s ancestor is a big old jerkface Englishman in the 1700’s, but no really one cares - they mostly just keep shagging. I’m sure something important happens with that plotline, but by this point, I decided to move on to a better book (which was Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson. Highly recommended.) 

I think my main issue is that it's kind of being sold as a some kind of critically-acclaimed, celebrated work of fiction, but in reality it's just a mediocre sexytime paperback. If I want a sexytime paperback, I want the one with the sleeziest, bulgiest, Fabio-est cover on the shelf - then I know what I'm getting into.  

That's the ticket!