Customer Reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Inventive, original and charming - just marvelous!, May 8, 2023
Audrey Niffenegger has achieved something fascinating and, I dare say, unique with The Time Traveler's Wife! She has married a simple science-fiction idea to a heart-warming romance and the result is a warm, compelling and readable human drama that succeeds on virtually every front one might choose to address.
The science fiction - and it's a small dose, indeed - is served soft and straight up! Henry de Tamble, a librarian by trade in Chicago, suffers from chrono-displacement disorder. Episodes of this puzzling ailment, usually triggered by moments of high stress or emotion, result in his disappearance from the present and his unceremonious re-appearance (naked, if you please) at random times and places in his own past or future life. A little mental gymnastics is needed to understand how it is possible that he first met his wife Clare Abshire when he was 28 and she was 20. But, she first met him when he was in his 40s and she was only 6 years old. Niffeneger takes care to ensure that she doesn't violate the usual science fiction prohibitions against causality paradoxes that can result from time travel and interaction with one's own past.
The writing itself is simple but earthy, warm and believable, and very human in the way it will strike some readers with its fundamental realism. This small passage on running, for example, doesn't further the plot but is important in conveying something critically important to Henry's life and character:
"I am moving stiffly; cold is unkind to joints, and I'm slowly realizing that it is pretty cold out here by the lake, probably in the low twenties. So I run a little slower than usual, warming up, reminding my poor knees and ankles that their life's work is to carry me far and fast on demand. I can feel the cold, dry air in my lungs, feel my heart serenely pounding, and as I reach North Avenue I am feeling good and I start to speed up. Running is many things to me: survival, calmness, euphoria, solitude."
Anybody who has ever attempted running will identify with those few sentences. Anybody who has ever attempted to write a sentence for somebody else's enjoyment will react with jealousy and admiration at Niffeneger's ability to convey those emotions in such a simple but lucid way.
This novel is, first and foremost, a romance and a love story that will move even a hard-nosed macho male reader, if not to tears, then to a deep and painful lump in the throat. The love, we discover with delight as we tag along on Henry's unpredictable leaps through his own history, includes love of parents, love of wives, love of friends, love of children and love of life. But Niffenegger has not neglected to remind us life also includes servings of sadness and loss in many, many forms - drugs and alcohol; fear of failure; illness, death and grieving; and, of course, loneliness, longing and absence.
Be sure to pick this book up! And then, as you read it, I'm sure you will put it down - several times, in fact - so you can stop and reflect on the beauty of what you have just been privileged to enjoy.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
thought provoking, May 8, 2023
This book is really amazing. It is engrossing and makes you think about the idea of past, present and future. Its excellent and i hightly reccomend it!!
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Stays with you long after you finish the book, May 8, 2023
The Time Traveler's Wife was an unexpected gem of a book--a bittersweet story of true love that literally spans time. From start to finish, The Time Traveler's Wife was so incredibly moving and well-crafted, I couldn't put it down-- which was a shame, because I finished it too soon and truly did not want to put the book away.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
One of my favorite books now, no doubt., May 6, 2023
I wasn't sure what to expect as I started reading this book. However it has become one of my favorite reads of all time. This book made me laugh out loud and also cry at different moments and I felt very involved throughout the whole book. Both of the main characters were very likable yet very human and the author did such a good job decribing them to us and making us feel what they were feeling. As Henry time travels and leaves his wife behind you actually can feel what she is feeling while feeling what he is feeling also. The way she started the book in current time and then kept updating us to the past was so interesting that I did not ever want to put the book down. I found myself even sneaking a few pages at work. This was the first book in a long time that I did not want to end and when it did end I felt so sad. Now I cannot wait for all my friends to read this book and I hope they enjoy it half as much as I did.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Loved it. , May 6, 2023
Hated for it to end. Romantic and intense, I loved the characters, I loved the way Niffenegger told the story through both Henry and Clare, and it gave me what I wanted in a love story. Super creative and compelling, I loved it every step of the way, even through my tears.
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