5 Reasons I am Obsessed With Outlander!

“Sing me a song of a lass that is gone.  Say, could that lass be I?  La la la la   La la la la ooohah to the sea,   to the Skye”

OK. So I don’t know the lyrics to the opening Outlander song.  I’m sorry!!  But who really does?  That doesn’t stop it from getting stuck in my head for days after I have watched an episode on Starz.  A little reminder of my obsession with Outlander.

I  admit that I have been obsessed with Outlander for over 23 years; ever since I read the first page of the first book while I was pregnant with my first child.  My husband had just been stationed in Arizona and we  moved hundreds of miles from our families.  I was sick during my pregnancy and didn’t work so I sat on the couch of our little apartment listening to the tv (the picture didn’t work) crocheting baby blanket after baby blanket.  My mother had given me the book to read right before an airplane ride and I got hooked.  I finished the nearly 900 pages of that first book and didn’t look back.  I immediately went to the library and checked out the next two books and by the time my daughter was born( we had a name picked out already or her name would probably be Claire)   Jamie and Claire were settled nicely in North Carolina.

Since then  I have read the books over and over many times.  My favorite is #4 Drums of Autumn.  That one came out within a year after my daughter was born.  It has been very difficult  waiting for each new book to come out.    It helps to know that Diana Gaboldon said she would continue to write their story until it is done.  I’m waiting for #9 now and since each book is around 900 pages, I tell myself that it really is worth the wait.  It also helps that we now have the Starz series to watch and see unfold.

Here are the #5 reasons I am obsessed with Outlander:

1. Jamie-   Sexy man who wears kilts and speaks in a Scottish brogue.  Enough said.

 

2. Claire-I identified with her very early on. The fact that the story was told from her point of view made it very easy to get to know her.   She was a young woman in the early years of her marriage and was dealing with pregnancies and issues surrounding traveling far from home and all she knew.  I was in the early years of my marriage and pregnant dealing with living in a new place far from everything I knew.  Claire is a strong, smart, and compassionate woman who deals with life’s struggles with a sense of humor and strength.  I wanted to be like her.

 

3. History- I love history! Especially when told through stories of people who lived during that time.  You start in Europe during WWII and go back to the mid 1700s in Scotland.  Then you have the parallel travel times so you get to learn about people who lived during the American Revolution and the 1960s.  With each tome logging in some 900 pages you get a lot of historical information which just adds to my enjoyment of the story.

 

4. Romance—Of course there is Jamie and Claire (swoon!) But also Brianna and Roger as well as Fergus and Marsali. Diana Gabaldon created a family saga here that was built on the love of Jamie and Claire.  She writes a love story so strong , so moving, so real that it takes my breathe away and makes me want to know  more about them.  I can’t wait to see where she takes them next.

 

5. Diana Gabaldon–She has said she will write their story until it is finished. I love that about her.  Normally you read a book and you loved it, maybe became obsessed with it.  If you are lucky the writer will write a sequal or turn it into a trilogy and you can read more about those characters you grew to love.  But in this case we get to read more and more and more and more about these magnificent characters we feel are almost a part of our lives.  We get to see how their lives play out.  That is the most incredible thing about this series!

So the last thing I want to say is I have only 1 regret about my Outlander obsession.  It’s not the many times I didn’t fold the laundry or clean the bathroom because I decided to spend some time in Scotland.  It’s not the hours I spent living in their world instead of my own.   My one regret is that I didn’t know Diana Gabaldon lived in Scotsdale Arizona until we had moved to northern California.  When I started reading her books and became obsessed with her first three offerings we lived a mere few miles from each other.  I could have been stalking her that whole time!   Oh well.  At least I have an autographed copy of that first book- the one that started my obsession.  In fact it was my daughter, the child I was pregnant with when I read the first book, who got it for me one Christmas.  Now that’s full circle.