The Time Traveler's Wife

Rating:
Summary: Tragically beautiful
Review: This book was totally absorbing and emotional. After reading the final page, it took me a full 15 minutes to regain my composure. Nigenegger's novel affected me in the way of a powerful film. I enjoyed the visual trip around Chicago, and the doomed/blessed relationship of Clare and Henry. Remarkable for a first novel. I look forward to book #2.

Rating:
Summary: Time Travelers Wife scores a direct hit
Review: One of the best books I've ever read, couldn't put it down. What a wonderful plot idea to be able to visit your own past and future, and visit your family before you've met them, or even been born, etc. I just hope the author writes a sequel about the daughter!!! Audrey has an enormous writing career ahead of her.

Rating:
Summary: Faithfully Developed for Maximum Reward
Review: Tales spun around themes of time travel are often overblown, too engrossed in what ifs of time travel to properly develop character and plot.

That said, "The Time Traveler's Wife" is a well crafted story that does not lose its focus, and is faithful to its characters and storyline.

Overall, avid readers of well crafted stories will be delighted with "The Time Traveler's Wife".

To qualify this statement, I refer to "well crafted stories" to mean more commonly accepted library recommendations, critics picks, and book club selections like "The Secret Life of Bees", "The Five People You Meet in Heaven ", "My Fractured Life", and "The Way the Crow Flies."

As one who enjoys plain old good writing, I can wholeheartedly proclaim that I have great appreciation for "The Time Traveler's Wife."

Rating:
Summary: Just a beautiful book
Review: I enjoyed this book tremendously. I laughed out loud, I cryed out loud. I cannot get other the fact that this is the author's first novel. It is beautifully written, a love story for all times.

Rating:
Summary: Tricky Business
Review: Science Fiction can be tricky business. I'd say it's best done as drama on its own, that happen stance places in a science fiction world. Stories that try too hard to be science fiction end up reading like they are trying to hard to be science fiction and the story suffers. That is NOT the case with THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE.

THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE is heart stirring because of the story. The love story of Henry and Clare takes hold because of the character and the sincerity. The science fiction element of involuntary time travel only adds to the story, it does not define the story.

As Science Fiction, THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE is as good as ORYX AND CRAKE and ENDER'S GAME. As drama it is as good as A PERFECT DAY and MY FRACTURED LIFE. With that backbone, it succeeds on so many levels. Concentrate on the time flow, it is handled brilliantly.

Rating:
Summary: Quirky urban love story
Review: Quirky urban love story
I don't know how author Audrey Niffenegger managed to make this bizarre and highly original premise work, but somehow she pulled it altogether and created a real winner. Henry Detamble has a real problem: he's stuck in the loop of a time warm, a veritable prisoner of the past who is swept from one era to another with absolutely no sense to the timing of his travels. He's married to Clare, works in a library - but swoops into different eras, usually somehow managing to lose all his clothes during the trip, and sometimes even runs into himself in passing, so to speak. The central problem is that, as time passes, Clare ages along the expected continuum while Henry's age shifts forward and backward, depending on where he is at any given time. Watching how this unique couple cope with the difficulties this produces in their tender and often passionate marriage is what makes this an unusual urban love story.
Don't miss it; all the hoopla is well-deserved.

Rating:
Summary: extremely clever and original
Review: audrey niffenegger's record breaking debut novel is a clever piece of story writing, using a unique pretense the novel shifts its hero back and forth in time to meet the love of his life.

the story is fabulously well paced and, albeit a trifle too long, audrey keeps the surprises coming all the time inthis roller-coaster ride. considering this is a sci-fi romance (for want of a better classification) the author invokes an amazing degree of believabiliy and induces dep empathy for hte plight of her characters.

the story is warm and tender and is bound to be a big hit with lovers of intelligent romance novels.

Rating:
Summary: "Love the world and yourself in it."
Review: Thank you A.F., for showing the current literary world that time travel isn't just fiction, it's also reality. My time traveling happens not haphazardly, or ramdomly, it happens selectively at my choosing. I am estactic to know that somebody has realisticly advanced my condition beyond the living and dying realm. I travel to the past and future. I travel beyond my existence both ways and not necessarily within the time span of my own life visiting family, friends and loved ones.

The Time Traveler's Wife is not just about Chrono Displacement, it's about quamtum leaps wherein nothing is displaced or replaced, and history isn't altered because of any one change. Most of all this novel is about selfishness and self-serving love whereby connected lives are ruined forever, and one life in perticular, Alba, becomes the positive in time-travel, perhaps at her selectiveness resembling my status.

Read and enjoy knowing from this review that time traveling is reality, and needless to say private and secretive. It's best left alone and not investigated or altered by genetic or drug induced engineering. Nothing in real-time traveling resembles The Time Trveler's Wife; it is fiction and the characters are fake. However, the work is entertaining. Your world is dipped in imagination, enjoy it, relish it and take all to your heart.

Rating:
Summary: A Simple Love Story
Review: The Time Travelers Wife is without a doubt the most highly imaginative and interesting book I've read. I usually shy away from any type of sci-fi reading but this one did stand out.

While I found the time shifting a little confusing at the beginning of the book, I quickly adjusted. The author did a great job of sequencing the story and allowed us to witness the growth of each character. I love that we were able to see Henry and Clare's first encounter, their "dates", their marriage and the rest of their lives. Both characters are highly engaging. I found myself waiting with Clare for Henry's return and running with Henry.

The writing is beautiful at times and jarring at others. In any case it showcases two people struggling to maintain normal lives and dealing with the here and now.

The only downside to this book was the lack of characterization of a few of the people in the book, for example, Clare's mother, Charisse and Gomez.

Rating:
Summary: love story that lingers
Review: I read this debut novel months ago and I still find myself thinking about Henry and Clare. Their love is epic and their challenges seem insurmountable; but, somehow they make it work.

The element of time travel enriches the story, causing the reader to think not only about the implications of being thrown back and forth through time, but also, the implications of the choices we make in life.

Read this book; I promise you won't easily forget it. It is a fast-paced read that is worth your time.