Trying again to do a blog entry but this time, instead of my phone I’m using the WordPress app on my new iPad mini. I’ll save the frustration of using either method for another blog post and will instead this time concentrate on the book, Outlander.
I started to read Outlander when we found out Becky would be studying at the University of Edinburgh and my reading became about all things Scotland. It was a choice I made with much hesitancy because while I know many who love the series, many people I know disliked the book, describing is as a barely palatable romance. I’m probably somewhere in the middle.
If the book did one thing for me it was that it prompted me to research a bit more into the Jacobean period of Scottish history and the bloodlines of the royal family – and that wasn’t a bad thing as it made some of the sites we visited on our trip there more relevant, but none of that happened until we were actually in Scotland because the first half of the book sucked.
Okay, maybe that’s a bit strong. It didn’t suck but it bored to the point where I set the book completely aside. Months before our trip I gave up on it. The only reason I took it back up and finished it was because on our second day in Scotland I met Shelby, a tour guide for Rabbies, and we got to talking about the filming locations for the upcoming series based upon he book and I mentioned how I put it down after I was halfway through. She told me she did the same thing but then went back to eventually finish it and she encouraged me to do the same. I did.
I can’t say it got so much better but it did get bearable. I still found Claire, the heroine to be too capable, too strong, too perfect but there was intrigue and some historical detail to make up for it. Actually, I think her character would have made more sense if written as from the present day rather than from post WWII England (b/c that’s how she sounded).
Will I delve back into the series with the second book Dragonfly in Amber
