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The Time Traveler's Wife

Audrey Niffenegger

Start date: January 2, 2019

Finish date: January 31, 2019

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Oct 23, 2008 Lois rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

I LOVED this book. I have seen it on suggested reading lists for years and never really picked it up.
Wow, was I impressed. This novel was a really good complex love story. Henry first meets Clare (is future wife) when he is middle aged and she is a grade schooler. At first he is her secret and she finds makes a place for him where she keeps clothes and food-since he time-travels nude. He has been able to time-travel since he was 5 and he has been able to go back and see his own mother when she w I LOVED this book. I have seen it on suggested reading lists for years and never really picked it up.
Wow, was I impressed. This novel was a really good complex love story. Henry first meets Clare (is future wife) when he is middle aged and she is a grade schooler. At first he is her secret and she finds makes a place for him where she keeps clothes and food-since he time-travels nude. He has been able to time-travel since he was 5 and he has been able to go back and see his own mother when she was pregnant with him and how his parents interacted with him when he was a baby. He can travel to the future and he seems to bounce around time with no real rhyme or reason.
When he meets Clare she accepts him as what he is in the way only a child truly can. Eventually she comes to fall in love with him. He is able to discern when he will show up based on information he leaves with Clare or with younger versions of himself.
The book has humor-Henry is a librarian and he often disappears at work leaving a pile of clothes in the stacks. He also often appears completely nude in the library. His co-workers and boss seem to think he has a sexual fetish involving being nude in the library and he does not dissuade them the truth being indeed stranger than fiction.
There are a few people who know-his father, his neighbor, Clare's best friends husband, an AIDs patient who helps him get drugs to help with his condition.
Henry's condition is often caused by stress and so his huge complex and involved wedding is of course an incident waiting to happen. In many ways Henry kind of floats for much of his teens and early 20's-he disappears without rhyme or reason causing problems with him and potential girl friends. He kind of has a cavalier attitude about his life-breaking and entering when he appears nude, fighting vicously when he has stumbled into a violent situation. He is 29 when he first meets Clare and she is 20. Now she has known him from his future visits to her when she is a child, but when she finds at the age of 20 when he is 29 he has no clue who she is. There is also a doctor that eventually helps them.
It is interesting how the novel unfolds-Henry and Clare truly love each other in a way I only dream of loving and being loved-not like a fairy tale but in a real sweaty, messy life kind of way. Yet the challenges they face are so unique. In some cases his older self has shared info with Clare that she is not to share with his younger self until a set time. He knows when he dies and how he dies and will not discuss it with Clare. They have rules between them that make the relationship work and it is so interesting how it plays out.
Truly a unique book and a heart-rending love story. ...more

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Mar 05, 2010 Paula Phillips rated it liked it · review of another edition

Here's a book that is a mix between Jumper and The Notebook Movies. It is coming soon to a cinema near you starring Eric Bana ( Henry) and Rachel McAdams ( Clare).

The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (2003)
This book focuses on a lifelong love between two people, librarian Henry and artist Clare. Henry was born with a genetic condition called Chrono-Displacement Disorder which causes him to time-travel back and forth - and unfortunately most of the time Henry doesn't have control over i ...more

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Mar 04, 2010 Candace rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Henry is a time traveler who meets Clare during different stages of her life. Clare falls in love with Henry and they are fated for each other but can a relationship be enduring with Henry popping in and out of time?

Niffenegger's novel is easier to read than I anticipated. Her pacing flows smoothly between her characters and the plot. Her time travel theory is believable and it draws the reader into the thick of the storyline. I definitely recommend this book.
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May 05, 2012 Molly Ringle rated it liked it · review of another edition

My sum-up would be "freaking depressing." It wasn't freaking depressing in the sense that Steinbeck or a lot of Thomas Hardy are freaking depressing, but considering I was expecting a playful part-sci-fi, part-romance romp, it turned out rather freaking depressing.

There was a lot of beauty in this book, and a decent amount of humor, but those only made up about half the (rather too many) pages; the rest was pain and grief and ugliness. (Examples? Oh, dysfunctional families, alcoholism, drugs, in My sum-up would be "freaking depressing." It wasn't freaking depressing in the sense that Steinbeck or a lot of Thomas Hardy are freaking depressing, but considering I was expecting a playful part-sci-fi, part-romance romp, it turned out rather freaking depressing.

There was a lot of beauty in this book, and a decent amount of humor, but those only made up about half the (rather too many) pages; the rest was pain and grief and ugliness. (Examples? Oh, dysfunctional families, alcoholism, drugs, incurable diseases, miscarriages, beatings, amputations, lethal accidents, suicides, regular old grief on a pretty much ongoing basis...should I continue?) And that was too high a proportion for me.

Henry and Clare were a romantic, steamy couple, yes, and I appreciated the unusual nature of the time travel in this story. Well, not unusual if you watch Doctor Who, but relatively unusual in literary fiction. However, Clare was nearly the *only* great thing to come out of Henry's time traveling, aside from one or two cool tricks regarding lottery numbers or stocks (they should've employed more fun ideas like that). Mostly it subjects him to awkwardness, horrible injuries, and poignant visits in the past to people who've since died. Realistic, maybe, if one can use the word "realistic" for this plot, but a delightful read? No way. Especially not the last quarter or so, when it becomes clear we're in a downward slide toward death. I detached myself emotionally before that, so I only felt somewhat depressed rather than heartbroken and mascara-tear-stained. (Not like I wear mascara much anyway.)

The reading group guide at the back included the question, "Would you call this a comedy or a tragedy?" Excuse me? In what universe would this be considered a comedy? I don't want to live in that universe.

The writing's pretty good, in that poetic, details-of-the-moment, first-person, present-tense style that so many "literary" novels take on these days, even though articles tell us writers we shouldn't use first person much, and should almost never use present tense for an entire novel. Some people get to break the rules and be on Oprah's reading list anyway, it appears. ...more

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Feb 26, 2013 Kris V rated it really liked it · review of another edition

When I first came upon this book, I felt myself sink into the prose and imagery of such a unique love story by the first paragraph. I reread it years later another couple times.
I couldn't stand the film, and I think the book has been put to rest now - but I still remember these characters, grateful they existed for awhile on the page and in my heart. ...more

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Aug 19, 2009 Jim Townsend rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Wow. A book that is weird, funny, and poignant; the second half is heartbreaking because each time Henry time travels it takes a heavy toll on him. But here, love conquers time and space. Oddly hopeful and uplifting.

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Mar 13, 2008 Terri rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I enjoyed the concept of this book, but I had trouble with the whole Lolita type thing. It made me uncomfortable and kept me from enjoying the book as much as I thought

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