Outlander: Outlandish Porn

My determination to stop reading fluff lasted as long as it took for this book to come off my hold shelf at the library. Whoops. I think I would have enjoyed Outlander considerably more if I had read it a few years ago. I was more tolerant then of books, and a lot less annoyed at smut.

As it is, Outlander started off with a bang. Rather foolishly, I started the book during the middle of the week, and consequentially, couldn't put it down. I wound up absolutely dying to read it and wanting to just skive off and curl up in a corner and pound through it. I haven't felt that way about reading in a long time. Probably because I usually am a heck of a lot smarter in terms of starting books at the end of the week so I don't have to skive off on any of my 'duties'. Ahem. Anyways, when I first started reading the book, I was hooked. I loved the descriptions, I loved Claire's personality, and I loved Jamie. My knowledge of history, especially Scottish history, is limited at best, so it was really intriguing to hear about all of Claire's encounters. My favorite parts were when she was adapting to life at the Castle and her position as nurse. I enjoyed the intrigue of Colum and Douglas' motives. I even enjoyed their tour and 'forced' marriage.

The minute the main characters began to romp like bunnies, I lost interest. Even the looming threat of Black Jack Randall couldn't re-engage me. In fact, the author's "resolution" involving that character was downright awful. If she had merely made him the motiveless evil villain, he would have been a lot more believable. instead he wound up with "family issues". While this in all likelihood would explain someone with such issues, it was written so terribly that it was just a joke.

The book rather quickly devolved into a pattern of sex, beat up Jamie, sex, beat up Jamie. The "plot" went out the window, as did all semblance of good characterization, well written dialogue and exposition, and my interest.

The most disappointing part was that it started out so good. It's not like it was terrible from the get go. There was some great writing in there that unfortunately got lost in this giant tomb of sex and torture. It's almost as though the author lost sight of what she really wanted to write about in favor of either her sexual fantasies or her attempts to please the lowest common denominator. From what I've heard about her series, it only gets worse.

I'm not even going to get into the Suprise!Buttsex. Seriously. Just... No.

(2/5 stars)