The Time Traveler's Wife

Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: I like time travel books if they are somewhat realistic (as realistic as time travel can get!). This one is superb. Gets a little confusing but is well written and funny. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: A fearless committment to love...
Review: This is an extraordinary novel with a unique premise, an exploration of the unknown in this expanding century, where the impossible becomes possible. It would be a mistake to label The Time Traveler's Wife a romantic fantasy, although it is a romance and it is based on a fantastic premise: time traveling. But this author adds a healthy dose of realism throughout the novel, keeping her character's feet grounded in the reality of every day life.

The extended love story between Henry and Clare is indeed lyrical, often touching, with vivid images drawn from the past and the comfort of the present. Henry has a rare genetic disorder, one that renders him capable of traveling back and forth in his own life, although he has no control over when the phenomenon occurs. He never knows when it will happen and Henry frequently finds himself stranded in another part of his life, naked and without resources. He has learned to live with his circumstances, making use of each journey to learn more about the world and his place in it.

Henry's travels are both a blessing and a curse. Due to his strange wandering, Henry has been able to see the mother he can barely remember, who died in a tragic accident, appreciating her beauty and spirit, watching as a bystander what memory has denied him. Henry also meets Clare long before they meet in real time, when she is still a child. Henry has observed Clare's development, seen all the changes from girlhood to young woman, praying all the time that she will wait for him. Henry and Clare's relationship is certainly unique, fraught with the ambiguity of Henry's condition; yet they accept life within such particular constraints and joyfully commit their hearts to each other's keeping.

Henry and Clare never enjoy the free expression of a normal relationship, remaining vigilant, should the future step in and separate them forever. They are perhaps more intimately aware of each precious moment together, less inclined to squander their energy on the inconsequential. In accepting Henry's love, Clare has accepted the nature of Henry's life and its limitations, grounded in flesh and blood reality. They pay a high price for this lifelong love affair, realizing that nothing worth having is easily won. Certainly, there are moments when they fear the unknown and cling to the one constant of their deep affection for one another.

The powerful emotional ending of this novel contains shattering revelations, abrupt slashes of brutal reality. Niffenegger develops her wonderful characters with great compassion and the grace to accept their often-difficult circumstances, as well as the blessings. Don't be deceived by Henry and Clare's easy charm or heady romance, as they draw you into their intimate circle, complicit with their dreams and disappointments. Be careful: they will break your heart. Luan Gaines/2003.

Rating:
Summary: AWESOME!!
Review: This book is AWESOME!!! It's the best book I've read in the past decade! I cried three times ... WOW!

Rating:
Summary: Utterly Magnificent!
Review: I have JUST finished this wonderful and wondrous book and had to recommend it to everyone. Unfortunately, I feel that MY words will be inadequate to convey the magnificence of this book. It is gloriously written and absolutely mesmerizing. It is one of the few pieces of art dealing with time-travel that do not have some gaping logical hole that makes the whole thing not make sense. The characters are beautifully drawn and highly engaging and appealing. The story is highly original and, while you do ultimately know where the story is going, you never know how it's going to get there or what will happen along the way. The book triggers the full gamut of emotions without ever once seeming manipulative. And above all, I cannot remember the last book I read that I enjoyed and respected as much as "The Time Traveler's Wife." I only hope it attracts the audience it SOOOOOO richly deserves.

Rating:
Summary: What a great book!!!!
Review: I enjoy time travel books if they aren't to sci-fi. This one is superb. The humor is right on and the love story is wonderful. It's a long book but well worth the time. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Wow.
Review: Wow. What a story. Someone thrust a copy of this book into my hands. "What's it about?" I asked? Knowing that I am more into sci-fi than romance, my associate replied "oh, it's about a time traveler, going backwards and forwards through time, and meeting his wife when she is really young." Intrigued, I picked up the book. I remembered something about movie rights being picked up, and didn't think much about it.

I picked up the book about a week ago, and I was hard pressed to put it down until tonight, when I finished it. Yes, the first couple of chapters have a distinct 'sci-fi' feel to them, as you try to figure out what the heck is going on. But, it becomes this incredible...story. It doesn't fit into any genre. It's just there. The author does an incredible job just reeling you in, in the first couple of pages. You immediate fall for these characters. You feel as you know them. The author has this wonderful ability to imagine this very robust universe. I could very easily imagine the locals, the places, the hangouts. It wasn't difficult at all. The prose style was wonderful, too. It shifted back and forth, taking place from the point of view of either of the two main characters the entire novel. You feel the characters growing, changing. They become *real* very quickly.

I was sad when it was over, because I didn't want it to be over. Not for the characters, and not for me. The characters had become alive for me, and I wanted to see survive for a much longer time than the 500 pages of this book. I was elated the other day when I discovered that the movie rights *had* been picked up by Brad Pitt & Jennifer Anniston's production company. I'm hopeful that the movie will be even half as good as the book (although I expect a lot to be lost in the translation, I'm afraid to say). If anything, I think this book could have been made into a television series, a one hour dramedy, that could have lasted 5 to 7 years, and tell lots of stories.

Oh. The premise. To quote from the back of the book: "When Henry meets Clare, he is 28, and she is 20. Henry has never met Clare before; Clare has known Henry since she was six..."

I couldn't recommend this book more. A great read, and maybe, just maybe, it might make you rethink some priorities in your life.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful read
Review: First of all, the book flips around and around in different time periods. Furthermore, it mentions situations before you find out what actually happens, so you need to mentally keep your place and wait for further explanation of many of the scenes. You have to be relatively skilled at mental multi-tasking in order to follow this story.

So, if you know you are the type of person who must have information presented to you in tidy chronological fashion, and who gets bored or confused or loses the thread of the story because of that kind of time and place shifting, don't read it. It will make you crazy.

However, if you can flow with a story, keep track of what's happening, and just want a great read, I would highly recommend this book.

Henry is displaced in time, and wanders in and out of Clare's life from the time she's 6 years old. During his visits to Clare, his own age varies from his 30s to his 40s because he is coming to her from different points in the future where he is married to her.

In order to survive his time travel adventures over which he has no control in places where he arrives naked and without any money, he has to learn to steal and avoid the police. Furthermore, he has to go back in time and teach himself as a child to do these things.

He also has to sustain his relationship with Clare over time, and she has to accept and put up with the fact that he suddenly comes and goes without warning.

I found the writing style to be wonderful, the story moved along smoothly, and the author built a beautifully crafted book using a very complex and difficult structure. I really enjoyed it and was completely sucked into the story.

Rating:
Summary: What would you classify this book as?
Review: I'm not sure I know myself. Is "The Time Traveler's Wife" science fiction? If so, it's one of the most unique science fiction stories I've come across in quite some time - but the premise is somewhat outlandish, even for science fiction.

Is it a love story? That's a bit easier to answer - it's definitely a love story, but not like any love story I've ever read. There are stories of love across time - Diana Gabaldon's series, for one - but the people in her stories stay put for the most part. Audrey Niffenegger's main character, librarian Henry De Trimble, jumps back and forth from present to past, and in some cases from present to future, at what seems like the drop of a hat. Niffenegger maintains her chronology, though. She never varies it or suddenly changes it; her only deviation, if you can call it that, is to present several incidents throughout Henry's life from different points of view.

Her main thesis - that Henry's time travelling abilties are somehow genetic in nature - is really sheer nonsense, but if you let go of your scientific assumptions and believe in her premise, this is a wonderful story that is sure to become a classic. Henry is a librarian who apparently travels along the timeline of Claire Abshire, the woman who is destined to be his wife and the mother of his child. He visits her as a little girl, as a teenager, and as a woman grown.

And there is definitely room for a sequel, since it's no secret that Henry's daughter, Alba, has the same ability as her father - except that sometimes she can control where and when she travels to.

This is definitely a story worth reading, and it has the potential for being a great movie - if the right person can be found to tell it.

Rating:
Summary: Great Vacation Read
Review: At first I wanted to put this book down becuase it seemed too insipid and a waste of time for over 500 pages. After I got into it, I finished it in a matter of days. The author is able to let you get to know the characters while living a far fetched science fiction story that you actually believe. A great read for a summer beach vacation.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect Summer Book
Review: Now, this is a love story! Henry & Clare could be almost any couple who meet, fall in love, suffer separations and catastrophes both personal and universal. As a military spouse and spiritual descendant of any prior centuries' sailor's wife, I live this sort of relationship. But Henry has come unstuck in time, and with no warning, can find himself naked and alone somewhen else. This vulnerability is eased by Clare, his love and the constant in his life. While he, the librarian, seeks order amid the chaos of his life; she, the sculptor, creates images of birds and symbols of longing. Together they make a life, and, literally make a new life whose joyful birth is closely followed by one of the great sorrows of this century.

Their different points of view are each told in first-person present tense. Henry, although he has seen the future, is more restricted by this knowledge than is Clare, since he is incapable of changing anything, but he is able to pass clues to her, and to the reader.

Niffenegger has brilliantly planned and executed her first published novel. She can be read on many different levels - as romance novelist she manages the concepts of memory over time far better than, say, Nicholas Sparks. Her science fiction is worthy of Phillip K. Dick. And her collection of artistic and literary allusion is, like T.S. Eliot's poetry, yet another excellent argument for a good liberal education.

It is a long book, and could use some editing. Henry's and Clare's voices could use some work to make them more distinctly individual. But overall, this is a glorious love story and a delicious summer read.