My view
Now I’m going to start by being brutally honest with you guys, I absolutely love the television adaptation of Outlander. Everything from Sam Heughan, people speaking Gaelic, the costumes, the plot and storyline it’s just an all-round winner and is part of the reason I decided to read the book.
I was worried that reading the book would lessen my enjoyment of the franchise as a whole, adaptations often miss out a lot of content/nuances which can leave viewers disappointed, but I feel that the showrunners have successfully managed to avoid that.
Back to the book, it took me quite a while to get through this book which is unusual for such a gripping story line, weighing in at 868 pages it is a reasonably lengthy book but the level of character development the author is able to achieve could not have been done in any less.
How the writer manages to set the scene at the start of the novel with Claire and Frank on holiday in the Scottish Highlands while introducing various aspects which come to be of greater importance further on in the story line is brilliant. As is how the relationship between Claire and Jamie develops at a natural pace throughout the book making it seem very plausible, but it manages to maintain the initial spark between them.
The only downside to this book for me was the lulls in the story where it felt like there wasn’t much happening and it was just too easy to but the book down, however this did serve to make the more dramatic parts which were to follow even more impactful.
Overall, I would say that Outlander is a solid read and I would recommend it whether you have seen the television adaptation or not. Despite finding it a little difficult to get through it was definitely worth the time and I’m very much looking forward to reading the second instalment.
Here’s the description from amazon
CLAIRE RANDALL IS LEADING A DOUBLE LIFE. SHE HAS A HUSBAND IN ONE CENTURY, AND A LOVER IN ANOTHER....
In 1945, Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon -- when she innocently touches a boulder in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach -- an "outlander" -- in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of our Lord...1743.
Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire's destiny is soon inextricably intertwined with Clan MacKenzie and the forbidding Castle Leoch. She is catapulted without warning into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life...and shatter her heart. For here, James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a passion so fierce and a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire...and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.
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