I picked up The Outlander by Diana Gabaldon at the library yesterday – a bit on a whim. I remembered a few friends talking about it not too long ago and I walked by it as I was looking for more Neil Gaiman books and it just caught my eye. I didn’t really have any idea what it was about or if it was my kind of book or not, but I added it to the pile anyway. And I picked it up today and now I cannot seem to put it down. It was shelved in the science fiction section and other than the whole time travel aspect; it’s really more of a historical romance than sci-fi in my opinion.
What I’ve found has drawn me in is her writing and the characters. I like how boldly she writes and I love her female lead character because she’s a spitfire with the intellect to back it up. It seems so much of the time that female writers focus on writing the perfect male character in these sorts of stories. The perfectly romantic, strong, intelligent man who can always come to the rescue at the perfect time and make you feel safe while at the same time making you feel all twitter pated and breathless. And then they ignore the woman almost altogether or else allow her to fall into the damsel in distress stereotype. Which really irritates me. Because why would a perfect man want to wimp for a woman? Seriously?!
But Gabaldon doesn’t do that. The man is not perfect. He is gorgeous and smart of course, but nowhere near perfect. While the woman is strong, confident, courageous and cusses like a sailor. And so far, their relationship is not of a codependent, eye rolling variety. Which is a nice change of pace, I must admit.
I will be interested to see where she takes the story, because right now she’s kind of treading water and I’m ready for it to go somewhere. But her writing has me hooked enough that I know I’ll be up way too late tonight. Not to mention that I cannot seem to stop thinking in a Scottish accent.
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