Okay, so looking back on this review after a couple of years have passed and I've come out as a lesbian is in fact as funny as I thought it might be. Wow, I wonder why I didn't find Jamie attractive at all and didn't really get why this book is supposed to be sexy?

People have been telling me to read Outlander for years, but I always resisted because long series of 1000-page books tend to hold little appeal for me. But it's 2020, and the world is upside-down, so I decided that it was time to change my reading habits and try Outlander.

There are some great things about this book that I personally have seen overshadowed by the sexy reputation of the series. When a library patron where I worked in 2013 told me that I had to read Outlander, she said that I had to read it because Jamie is hot. "Jamie is hot" tends to be the prevailing selling point for the series.

Here's the thing. I don't find Jamie overwhelmingly hot, large and muscular men not being my thing, and I don't find this book all that sexy. While there are some genuinely tender sex scenes between Claire and Jamie that do what I think all good sex scenes need to do--reveal something about characters and progress their relationship in ways that other situations wouldn't, and also to not sound gross--they're kind of outliers in the broader sexual landscape of the books, in which rape occupies a larger space than I expected.

And I'm pretty conflicted in my feelings about that.

But while Outlander is not the romp that you might mistakenly believe it to be based on the "Jamie is hot" marketing, it boasts characters who are interesting and easy to care about, which is important if you're going to stick around for thousands of pages. The people in these books are complicated and live difficult and dangerous lives. You're invested in finding out what happens to them, even the ones you don't like.

Claire stands out for me as a heroine equally removed from the one-dimensional Strong Female Character trope and the empty placeholder heroine that allows the reader to insert their own identity. She's smart and capable, and watching her use her knowledge of medicine and botany to heal people are some of my favorite scenes. But she's also hotheaded and sometimes makes dumb decisions, which I also love. Because that's being human.

Jamie similarly gets to inhabit more emotional ground than being hot. I've read him described as a barbarian, but that's a pretty bad take regarding a character who is educated, skilled at politics, and dealing with multiple sources of trauma in a time in history when that's not really even a vague concept. His relationship with Claire is devoted but not without its challenges (especially moving into book 2, but that's another review).

Overall, my first foray into this series has been one of surprise and some confusion. Surprise that it's not the bodice-ripper it gets billed as, and confusion about why it has that reputation. My educated guess is because it's narrated from a woman's perspective, because a romantic relationship plays a significant role in the two protagonists' development, and because it's written by a woman.

But also because of how some fans talk about it! Why isn't there more discussion of how cool it is that Claire was a combat nurse and can set compound fractures? Why aren't we impressed with the amount of research that went into the writing? Why aren't we shaking our heads and cursing English imperialism?

Anyway. Glad that I've finally given this a go, and interested to see how the saga unfolds over subsequent books.