Outlander – Diana Gabaldon

Well f*ck me. I found a new ship.

Okay, so if you haven’t noticed…for literally the last 30 years there’s this little series being published called Outlander.

We follow Claire Randall. In her timeline, it is 1945 and she’s excited to settle down and get to know her husband after the long years apart due to the war.

Near her house, there are legends of women walking through the woods and finding themselves displaced by 200 years…and that’s exctly what happens to Claire.

She witnesses a strange ritual happening in the woods, and when she investigates it later she walks through the ancient circle of stone and finds herself in war-town Scotland in 1743.

Immediately she is picked up by a band of Scots warriors, including one James Fraser, and at first, all she can think of is getting back to her own time and husband.

But the longer she is kept apart, the more she wonders if she should ever go back.

Right off the bat, this book is a doozy. It’s 850 pages, the start of a 10-book series (if the last couple ever get published) and the fandom for this book is absolutely wild.

SO you might be wondering…is this book worth a read?

Honestly…yes. So much yes.

It might be 850 pages but by-gosh did it go by fast. The action, the adventure, the mayhem and more kept me glued to the book from the moment I picked it up.

The fact that there’s going to be nine other books to this series only excited me more – if the first one was THAT compelling…I just cannot wait to see what the others will be like.

And there’s something so exciting about picking up a book with an established fandom – you know that the series has to be good if 30 years after the first book was published, people still post about it every day.

As for the actual book – I really, really enjoyed it.

Claire is a compelling main character and the way she takes on the situations handed to her was really entertaining to watch. I love that she’s so knowledgeable as a combat nurse and how she tackles the various injuries that come her way.

I do feel like I need to warn people cause in 1743…let’s just say that there’s a handful instances that represent period-appropriate treatment of women and quite a bit of violence. To me, it could’ve been handled in more of a PC way but at the same time, this is fiction.

There’s also quite the controversial scene at the end…which was more problematic to me but at the same time, once I finished book 1…I was still very interested in book 2.

Ultimately, I’m really looking forward to continuing this series and as of now, it looks like a great start to a new series.