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Women's Fiction

The Time Traveler's Wife

The Time Traveler's Wife

List Price: $14.00
Your Price: $10.50
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Unusually captivating romance.
Review: I don't typically like romance books. In fact, I don't like them at all. They never cease to bore me to tears.

This book's twist makes it one of the most interesting reads I've had in a long time. And mind you, this is a romance story.

The idea of chronoloical displacement disorder is very original, and makes for a complex plot with many ins, outs, twists, turns, and dips. The book may start off as confusing, but I got the hang of the chronological orders within a couple chapters.

I seriously recommend this book for all mystery, drama, and romance buffs. A great read.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Could have been better
Review: I read a few books a week and so when I heard about this book, I immediately purchased it based on the reviews. I really wanted to like this book but after finishing it, I'm just not that impressed by it. For one thing, it is way too long. There is a lot of stuff that could have been edited out. I also wish it could have just been written in chronological order. I got very confused by all the dates and ages (1991 Clare is 8, Henry is 41; 1987 Clare is 31, Henry is 15) - it was really hard to keep it straight. Also, the book seemed to fall apart after they got married. There was less detail about their life together. It was like "oh they're married now so they don't spend any time together anymore". I was also disappointed that the author used such crude terms for the male and female anatomy. It was almost like it was for shock value and it didn't jibe with the rest of the book. For the most part, I enjoyed the book and it was a very unique concept but I guess it just wasn't for me.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wonderful.....
Review: I have just finished The Time Traveler's Wife and I must say it made me incredibly happy - I loved it. It has inspired me to write my first book review ever!

The love story between Henry and Clare is beautiful, and although Henry's time traveling presents many obstacles and complications, their love is refreshingly uncomplicated. Their story is of a strong, tender, and pure love - not the overly dramatic or bodice ripping type of love so often portrayed in literature and film.

There is a phenomenon that love brings in which you feel as if you have loved someone your whole life, loved the little child that existed long before life ever brought the two of you together. This book beautifully brings that concept to life, as Henry is able to time travel and know his wife as she grows from a six year old into the young woman he is destined to marry.

As several of the other reviews mentioned, I would recommend reading this book all at once, I assure you this will not be hard to do!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Hard to put down, and dangerous if you do
Review: Great book!!! Rather than go into a review of the book, let me offer up a few suggestions if you decide to pick up this gem.

1) Give it some time to get into it. It took me about 50-75 pages to really get my mind around the time travel aspect of the story. Once you figure it out, you'll be hooked.

2) Related to #1, I would not try and start reading this book unless you can take the time to get into it and not read it in small doses. This may have been my problem at first, I started reading the book 10-20 pages at a time and that probably caused me to take a bit longer to "get" it.

3) Plan on having a hard time putting it down in the end. When it is over, you may want to reread it and reread it again.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Interesting and Intriguing
Review: I found this book to be utterly fascinating although I would warn potential readers that it is easy to lose track of the story if it is set aside for a day or two! This book certainly makes one stop and think- what WOULD it be like to be chrono-displaced? It is a good love story as well. I would consider this to be one of the top 10 books I read this year.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: INTERESTING BUT BADLY FLAWED
Review: A gangbuster beginning deteriorated into redundancy. The premise was intriguing and I must admit I liked the relationship between Clare and Henry. As a love story in the "Time and Again" mode it was quite engaging. However, like a number of other reviewers, I feel that most secondary characters were underdeveloped--shadow people who deserved a better fate. I was also uncomfortable with Henry's disinclination to change the past or future. He could have tried! Are we victims of fate? Have we no free will?

Finally I was very, very dissatisfied with the ending. Did Clare actually wait patiently for Henry's brief return when she was 82? That's a bit long-suffering for my taste. What happened to Alba? Did she suffer the same type of fate or did Dr. Kendrick discover the cure? After 500+ pages I thought I deserved more!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: I'm so glad that I didn't pay any attention to the negative reviews for this book. I think it was absolutely unique and amazing.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Unique love story
Review: I'm not a big fan of love stories. If they go on long enough, they almost always end sadly, in death or parting, and there's quite enough of that in real life. But I saw "The Time Traveler's Wife" in an airport bookstore, was intrigued enough to start reading, and was hooked. No, it didn't change my opinion of love stories, but I'm glad that I read it, and would recommend it to others.

The basic concept is that Henry, the time traveler of the title, has a genetic disease something like epilepsy that causes him, usually at moments of stress, to come unstuck in time, and to vanish, reappearing semi-randomly, usually at some other time and place related to his personal history. He arrives quite naked, which introduces problems that often help to move the narrative forward.

In time-travel stories, a critical issue is whether there are single or multiple timelines: can traveler can go back in time and change an event that he has witnessed, spawning an new timeline, or is he constrained to repeat the event exactly? "The Time Traveler's Wife" chooses the single timeline approach, so Henry (and the book) grapples with a sense of predestination that is very literal. (For another, very different, time-travel novel of character that chooses the multiple timeline approach, see David Gerrold's "The Man Who Folded Himself".) The author plays fair with this constraint. Even if Henry encounters a younger self, he cannnot alter an event that he remembers. However, consistent time loops are allowed, so Henry can sometimes bring back information from the future.

The other main character is Clare, the time traveler's wife of the title. Events are described from the viewpoint of both Henry and Clare (when both are present). This device generally works quite well, and helps to keep Henry's fragmented personal history from becoming too confusing. The book mostly follows Clare's timeline, beginning with their first meeting when Clare is 6 years old, young enough to take the sudden appearance out of nowhere of a naket 36-year old man in stride. Yet from Henry's perspective, he first meets Clare when he is 28 and encounters a 20-year old woman who insists that she has known him all her life. I found the early encounters between the older Henry and the young Clare to be particularly engaging.

Fantasy is at its best when it takes the commonplace and turns it slightly askew to make it fresh and interesting, and "The Time Traveler's Wife" is a fine example of this. The time-travel device, while providing the narrative hook of the work, ultimately is used to explore the familiar themes of love and loss, separation and reunion, from a unique perspective.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: She teaches writing?
Review: I gave this two stars because I find the concept behind the novel fresh and innovative. Sadly, I have very little other praise for the book.

First of all, I was simultaniously astonished, horrified, and encouraged that this woman teaches writing. I expected this to be the beginning work of a young author who makes the expected mistakes of one wading into the river of fiction writing, so to speak. The style is juvenile and the character development limited to physical descriptions and two dimensional characteristics (they are self-proclaimed "punks", for example). The encouragement I felt was that, as a sixteen year old, my level of writing surpasses hers.

She carries off the stream of thought of an eleven year old well, but misses all the subtleties of the dialogue between adult characters. The author chooses instead to write poorly constructed action punctuated with words she believes represent twenty-somethings, their conversations interspersed with words like "c**k" that jar and rag the ebb of her words.

Additionally, one of her two main characters, Clare, is a blatant "Mary Sue" character. To provide a definition for readers unfamiliar with the term, "Mary Sue" is beautiful, rich, and intelligent. Boys fall in love with her instantly, and she can do no wrong. She saves the day in the end, finds true love, and has sufficient angst for good measure (her cigarette burns and the bruises she earns for preserving her chastity are justified by Big Mean Stunningly Attractive Man, who appears only to avenge his lover and then, typically, vanishes). This has unpleasant undertones of deus ex machina, and the utilization of a plot device that should have died with Greek Classicism becomes increasingly annoying as the novel progresses.

Finally, I was unhappy with the presentation of the narrative, which seems trite, contrived, and choppy. The point of view fluctuates numerous times per chapter, always in first person, and while it is not difficult to determine who is speaking, it comes off as useless and annoying.

I understand the praise from other readers who appreciated the efforts of a budding novelist. However, I would like to encourage those who enjoyed the style to read works from Kurt Vonnegut, who uses allegories and symbolism that challenge the mind much more than a flirty book like this one.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: great idea, just not a good book
Review: well, here is another book for the "great idea, just not a great book" file! ms. niffenegger had an original idea, however, she became too wrapped up in writing about punk rock, sex and anarchy. if i had to read another preachy passage about any of the above mentioned topics, i was close to wishing i could travel to the future (just to be done with the book). i didn't care about the characters or what happened to them. i understand ms. niffenegger is an artist... she should stick with art.


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