Polish Outlander

So, I’m a huge fan of the Outlander books by Diana Gabaldon. I read them my senior year in college, one right after the other. It was perfect timing because when I started reading them the fall of that year, the sixth book was just released. I distinctly remember having a huge chunk of time in between classes on some days, so instead of even going back to my dorm, I would sit in the student center on a couch and just read and read. And when I would go into my afternoon class, the girl who always sat next to me noticed that I was reading these massive mass market paperbacks, and that the color of the books kept changing. I was really sucked into them. When I had come to the end of Book 2, I screamed “What?” and immediately grabbed my copy of Book 3, only to realize I had mistakenly bought Book 4. The next day, I went straight to the bookstore to get Book 3. So, after six months of relishing in these six huge books, I came to the end of Book 6 and realized that I would have to wait for Book 7. Sigh. And who knew how long that would be at the time.

In the meantime, my future mother-in-law was reading them at the same time as I was, and I had also recommended them to my friend who also read them rather quickly. (Danielle is quite the impressive reader I have to say. When we went looking at wedding dresses for me, I saw a copy of one of the books in her car and asked her what book she was on and I’m pretty sure she was on like Book 4, which considering how recently I had given her the books, was pretty fast reading for me!)  My copy of A Breath of Snow and Ashes was quite the loved book since it was read by the three of us.

I set out to regularly check out the author’s website to find out the latest scoop as to when the next book would be released. I was overjoyed when she announced that the seventh book was coming this year. Last week I got my copy of An Echo in the Bone and immediately started to read the massive tome, and then….

And then I realized that I had forgotten some things: some characters, some plot lines, etc. I kept reading despite that, (some things would come back to me as I continued read) even though I remembered the basic plots of the main characters. I was still enjoying the book and really wanted to know what was going to happen next.  The problem was that there were so many characters at this point and so many events have occurred. The thought started to bounce around in my head that I may need to re-read the previous books. That way, I would be up-to-speed and really have everything fresh in my mind and know really what the heck was going on. And I would truly enjoy re-reading those books. But….

I don’t have the time to devote to reading all seven books at the moment. I do most of my reading on the train ride to and from work, so reading all of them would take a few months. Plus, after reading the author’s blog, it’s inevitable that there will be a book EIGHT! Because there are a lot of cliffhangers and storylines to be resolved. So do I want to even finish Book 7 (I’m only up to page 150 of 800) knowing that I will have to wait a few years for the next book, knowing that by the time that book comes out I will have forgotten more plot points, knowing that I might want to re-read the other books then too?

Josh said I should just wait. I really want to read Echo but I really don’t want to be left feeling “I want to find out what happens!…NOW!”

So, with some sadness, I put my copy of Echo away on the bookshelf and I guess it shall have to wait to be read in a few years’ time….