The Time Traveler's Wife

2.5 stars

The Time Traveler's Wife proffers the story of two people, Clare Abshire and Henry deTamble, whose lives are knit through with the vagaries of Henry's genetic condition, eventually named 'chrono-impairment', which causes him to time travel involuntarily. Though based on the premise of time travel, it is difficult to categorise the book as science fiction, when at its core it is the story of two people in love who are forced to play out their relationship on a foundation of uncertainty. Henry's disorder causes him to be hurtled through time with no control over where he will end up (however, most of his travelling forays are into the past or the very near future), and Clare, who meets Henry when she is six (and eventually marries him) must establish a semblance of normalcy in her married life despite her husband frequently disappearing, sometimes for days on end.

I was a little disappointed with how the story progressed. Though off to a good start, it devolves into your cliched love story, with characters becoming increasingly two-dimensional over the course of the book. Additionally, I was put off by what seemed to be a 'box-ticking' exercise of representing equality and tolerance (towards Black and Asian people, queer people, persons with disabilities), as well as by how convenient the storyline is. There are fairly large plot holes which are skimmed over in the interest of a cushy story. I also found it confusing how the book oscillated between the two narrators (the Time Traveler, and his Wife) - sometimes both voices seemed the same.

This was difficult to read because I kept wanting to cast it aside and move on to something else, but as a rule I finish all books I start.

welp, not very good.

My sister read this book recently and loved it so she recommended I read it too. "Is it a romance novel? Because, you know, I don't really enjoy those kinds of books." "Oh, NO, it's not really a ROMANCE book" my sister LIED.

This is a book that kind of had a good idea but it went wrong in a lot of different ways. Number one is it was fucking BORING! Nothing much happens. Here is a dude who can travel throughout time and he only goes to the same boring locations. And don't give me any crap about he just visited those places because he was drawn there by love... yawn. What a ripoff to be able to time-travel and then only get to go to the same few places.

Another problem I had was none of the characters were likable in the slightest. And they weren't likable because they were cardboard cutouts. They were just lists of likes and dislikes, habits, hair color etc... There was zero character development to the point that no matter who was narrating a particular section, Henry or Clare, there was no difference whatsoever in the voice and I frequently lost track of who was supposed to be talking.

Plus the whole time-travel thing was wack and not even believable. Like he couldn't control where he would go or where in location he would come back to, but sometimes he would come back exactly where he needed to be for the convenience of driving the narrative forward. IDK I just wasn't able to suspend my disbelief. Especially when friends or his doctor found out that Henry could time-travel and they were all like, "ho-hum, Oh you TIME-TRAVEL, hahaha. We thought maybe something strange was going on. But time-travel..." And then they all kept his secret and acted like that was just a quirk of his like OCD tendencies or something.

And a grown man going back in time to visit his wife when she was a little girl (and arrive there NAKED, ahem) was creepy. It took away any choice Clare might have had, Henry constantly visiting and grooming Clare for her future life with him. I didn't like that. It wasn't romantic to me, it just felt gross. It made Clare seem so weak and manipulated, without any real choice in the matter. And then why did he keep up ending there anyway? Dude, you can time-travel. Go someplace more interesting every now and then, damn. I mean, at least TRY!

Also I sometimes hate when a story is told from different characters point of view and I really hate when the book goes back and forth in time. I mean, sure I understand why it jumped back and forth in time for this book but I still didn't enjoy it.

So meh. This just isn't the type of book I enjoy and is probably why I never read it until now. I have read one other book by this author which was also had a kind of weird premise and I'm pretty sure I thought it was just okay and nothing too special. I can't even remember what it was about offhand.
So read it if you like love stories. But, if like me, you are drawn to books that are a little darker go read some Cormac McCarthy, lol.

ps sorry Susie!

I read this book over the course of a few days.

I enjoyed this book, but really it was okay. I don't feel touched by it, and as someone who cries at tv shows, movies, and books (heck, even sometimes songs) it is telling that this book did not make me cry. I did have dreams about it, though, so that's something. The book interested me right from the beginning. Sometimes it takes a few chapters to get into the characters, but they were right there and easy to grasp on page one or two.

This book was recommended to me several times, partly because I really enjoyed another set of books that had to do with people having past and future lives. I'm not sure why people thought that if I enjoyed that, I would enjoy this. It is different. Henry's time travel is somewhat the same, but not really. Honestly, I found this book very straightforward and not at all confusing in the lives of Henry and Clare. The author dictates their ages and dates right at the beginning of each section.

The writing itself was very good. The story was a bit of a mixed up love story. I do have a few complaints. First, about 3/4 of the way through the book, I found myself wondering if the author is truly a woman. She used the word "cunt" a couple different times. I never hear women use that word, and I never read it in books written by women (with the exception of Nora Roberts once when a man was using the term). However, she had her female character use it twice and one that fits the profile of a woman unlikely to use it. It was jarring to read that word and there are several other appropriate words that could have taken its place.

Another reason I wondered about the author's gender is she has clearly not birthed a child after 1995. Her lack of research into the topic was frustrating to me. I had children in 1999 and 2001 (actually about 6 months prior to when her character had her child). I birthed both my children in Omaha, Nebraska which I can only imagine is more conservative in health and delivery care than Chicago, Illinois. As far as I can tell, it is standard practice in most hospitals to have the labor room and the delivery room to be the same room. There is not transport of mother unless into a surgery room for a Cesarean section, which is not what Clare had. They also have not shaved women in years and years. All she had to do was ask somebody who had birthed a child in a hospital around the year 2000 to get a more accurate portrayal of birth, let alone call a hospital maternity ward. My opinion of the author's research and writing went down the drain after reading that scene.

Finally, I was wondering why you would send an infant or toddler out and about with a father who is known to disappear with little warning without somebody else around. It seems like a bit of parenting common sense that Henry normally would have thought through. Since nothing actually happened, it did not affect the story, but it also jarred me.

Overall, this is an interesting story, but it is not something I would recommend fondly.