This book has accompanied me for half a year - most of which I spent in Scotland, so you see, I'm lucky that way. I have very mixed feelings about it and cannot disentangle my views on the book from my personal reading experience, so this review will be autobiographical rather than the usual pertinent considerations. 
 When I started reading Outlander in April I had just handed in my second semester essays and was on a plane home for a six-day long holiday before I had to start writing my dissertation plan. What I wanted was a chill out read, something that wouldn't keep me second-reading everything. I wanted a fun, take it or leave it sort of story. And it was set in Scotland, so hooray! 
 Some of the best memories I have of reading the book is sitting at a tiny strip of rocks by Dunnottar Castle at Stonehaven overlooking the sea while enjoying Claire and Jamie's adventures. It was a rare beautiful sunny day in Scotland and it felt almost daring to be there, imagining the story take place in a nearby location. I'll leave a picture of the setting, with the sole aim of making other people jealous: 
 However, if you've read any other Outlander reviews you must know by now that this book is not without its own wee aura of polemic. After all, in some sense, the protagonist is a bigamous. That doesn't bother me at all, by the way. Although, I've had huge fights (in Scotland too) about a certain scene in the book. (view spoiler)[The scene where Claire and Jamie are having sex and she says no, and he still forces her to go on. (hide spoiler)] My flatmate and one of her friends (and one of my friends too, traitor!) thought it was all very (view spoiler)[romantic and sexy (hide spoiler)]. I and another one of my friends were the only ones who thought the whole scene was extremely (view spoiler)[problematic. Especially because it follows a beating. (hide spoiler)] Me and my flatmate didn't fight often, but we yelled for a bit that one time. We made our peace when she and a Scottish friend of ours enacted the most ridiculous sex scenes in the book. It was all very erotic, as you may imagine, especially when the Scottish girl kept interrupting to assure us that "no, she dinnae speak like that". Too bad our Chinese flatmate was travelling at the time, as I'm sure he would have been the perfect man for the job. 
 As you can see, I have a lot to talk about, very little about the book. I am back from Scotland now, and I have to admit the book was quite boring at parts, with the above mentioned exceptions. I'd spend months without touching it (hell, they even made a tv series while I was reading it - and by the way, my flatmate's friend was involved in the costume producing (view spoiler)[of the witch trials episode (hide spoiler)]. That might be why she's so biased!) to then devour up to a hundred pages at once. I think my problem was mostly that the whole book seems to be fillers instead of actual plot. I was actually surprised when I finished it today because I thought something would happen still, but apparently not. Well, if it leads to flat fights, there must be some good in it.