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!