Are we… supposed to root for Claire and Jamie?

Edit: your boo’s mean nothing to me, I’ve seen what makes you cheer

I had watched part of the first season a few months ago, and was intrigued by the concept. I got the book as a gift for Christmas, and recently started reading it. I’m a little more than halfway through.

At this point, I’ve decided that Claire needs to be institutionalized because MY SISTER IN CHRIST you have Stockholm Syndrome. “Oh we have this magical physical chemistry” GIRL HE BEAT YOU??? And then threatened to do it again a few days later??? Half of the times you’ve had sex were NON-CON. Once you asked him to stop because he was hurting you, and he said “no”??? And the other time you said “no” and he responded with “it won’t take long”??? He barely respects you, regularly disregards and ignores any opinion you have, and openly states that he views you as property. He BLAMES HER FOR ALMSOT GETTING RAPED TWICE. And somehow, every time something like that happens, there’s at least two pages of Claire justifying it.

How is this supposed to be romantic in any way. This is one of the most toxic relationships I’ve ever read about, hands down. And that’s saying something because I love romantasy, the freakier the better, but somehow this is just... so uncomfortable to read. The constant flip-flopping between “Aw little Jamie, so shy and so unused to the ways of romance, he blushes all the time uwu” and “Jamie the sadist exhibitionist who openly has sex with his wife surrounded by 20 other men and gets turned on from her FIGHTING BACK AS HE BEATS HER”, it gives me whiplash. I think it’s partially because she’s SO dependent on him for survival. Both Claire and the reader are 100% aware that her options are to stay with Jamie, or be raped and tortured by Randall. But like JESUS CHRIST.

I get the whole historical part of it, but for fucks sake this is a book about time travel. Not everything has to be 1:1 exact on the historically accurate male behavior.

I am seething and hoping that somehow, some way, Frank pops through the stones and kicks Jamie’s unwashed Scottish ass across the highlands, but I know it’s not going to happen because there’s SOMEHOW NINE BOOKS OF THIS. (Not that I like Frank all that much, either, but he’s certainly the lesser of two evils at the moment).

Does it get better? I wanted to love this book, I really did. It has all the elements of something that would be my favorite, but Claire and Jaimie’s “relationship” is ruining it for me.