The Time Traveler's Wife
Ratings699
Average rating3.9
I really liked how the author used metaphor of time travelling to emphasize emotional absence and irresponsibility. I'm not sure if this is a spoiler or not, but if you ever met people who have hard time keeping any of their promissis, and them backing out last minute, and somehow always having very "good" excuses - the main character is just like that. The book is well-written, but perhaps some chapters are way too stretched out. I found the main character VERY annoying, but it's great that the author was able to evoke those emotions in readers.
This is probably my favorite fiction book. I am glad that there is finally an unabridged version of it. The narration is this is very good. The chapters alternate from beging told from the male and female protagonists point of view. And the audiobook as two good narrators, male and female to do that voice. This is a science fiction book wrapped up in a tragic romance. Hard sci fi fans may not like it, but it hits the science fiction ideas of time travel paradoxes and determinism similar to the ideas of Asimov. If you are a tragic romance fan (think Nicholas Sparks) don't let the science fiction throw you off the book. Its science fiction is held lightly and the romance of the story comes through.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/time-travelers-wife/
This book is phenomenal. As a romantic novel it's moving. I mean, Oprah loved it, right? But as a time travel novel it's astounding. Everything works. There's no star trek type time travel cheating. It all works chronologically. Everything that happens did happen or will happen. It's awesome. I love this book.
Currently listening to this on my commute. While I don't love it and sometimes don't even like it–to the point where I'm groaning aloud in the car–I suppose I'll finish it. The conceit is pretty clever and there are parts of it that are rather poetic. The notion of a girl meeting her soul mate when she's 6, and him helping to raise her, essentially, is both creepy and somehow platonically appealing. I might need to think about it a bit more and get all feminist and outraged over it, but I'll go along with a light and fluffy interpretation for now.
Nope: gave up on it. Don't miss it. blerg.
Shocked at how upset I was when finishing the book! (To be honest, I sobbed for a good ten minutes straight.) Clare and Henry are just real enough that I felt connected with them, which is no small feat for characters who inhabit a fantastical life and embody a magical love. It makes impossibilities believable, and attainable.
Have to say I'm not disappointed that I won't be seeing the film, though; I don't find Eric Bana particularly attractive, and I'm sure that, based on a major plot-point in the book, I would be seeing a lot of him, in a very physical way. I'm okay with skipping that experience.
Good book...It's funny. I noticed that the author had all these run-on sentences, but good descriptions. I write exactly like that. And my teachers tell me that its horrible and confusing. Ha(:
Still, good book.
A really bittersweet story, the last chapter left me feeling wistful.
I understand why this is a well loved story, but for me there were just way too many unanswered questions and events that weren't looked into at all. I would've loved to read more about the “science” aspect, but that's just not what he story was about.
Started really strong, I was half convinced this would become one of my favourites, but unfortunately the middle and end just didn't work for me as well as I'd hoped.
Worth a read but I'll happily hand my copy for the next reader, it's not one I'm eager to reread anytime soon.
A touching story, joyous, sad and romantic at different points. I think my favourite scene was right at the start of the book, when the traveller meets his future wife for the first time in his timeline and she's so delighted to see him again (after a gap of a couple of years, for her) that she completely bowls him over. I will usually read a 500-odd page book in two or three chunks; this one got read in a single sitting, something I don't often do. It's going to become an acknowledged classic, I'm sure of it.
I didn't love this book and would have DNF'd it except that I was reading this for a challenge. At first glance this seems like an epic love story, where the lovers are separated by time. But when you really dive into Clare and Henry's realtionship across the years it gets complicated and creepy.
When Henry time travels to Clare as a kid and teenager he's between 30 - 40 years old. He's such an all consuming part of her life that it feels manipulative. When she finally turned 18 Henry was like 42, oof that was an age-gap I didn't want to know about. Even as adults, future-Henry meddles with present day Henry & Clare's relationship. These moments pose moral questions that the author casually skips over.
I couldn't wait for it to be over. I understand the book was written in early 2000s and the world was different then, however I was astonished about how homophobic, racist, elitist, and chauvinist this book was. It is way more retrograde than books I have read from classical writers, like Dickens. Let's not even get into the problematics of a naked man showing up to a 7 years old girl and asking her to keep it secret. Beyond that, some parts of the book sounded like the author was lazy, it was like reading someone's diary, no deep nuances or details, just a quick description about facts of the day. I should also mention that what Claire did to her friend in the past and then again in the future made me nauseated, no level of suffering can justify her bitchiness.
Giving 1 star because it can't be lower and after all the book distracted, even if it made me mad.
2.5 stars.
The book is kind of dragged. It starts out interesting because of the narrative style (back and forth), but after a while, it is just the characters eating, roaming, and talking, which is not interesting enough for 150–200 pages. But at the end, I did kind of feel slight emotions towards the characters.
Come to think of it, the love story between the leads is not well developed. They just fall in love for the sake of it. Also, what is the art that Clare does? I didn't understand it. Whenever the topic about her art comes, it just skim through it
honestly I don't think this book is as wack as it has become to be understood (aside from the written out-dialect for the characters of color, yikesy)
https://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-231-the-time-travelers-wife/
3.6/5
The story was kind of slow and hard to read at first, but then it started to pick up and I got invested in the love story. It has a sad undertone that makes the story even greater imo.
There are times when I thought about how wrong their love story is because Henry basically groomed her
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Rounded up to 4 stars
I actually really liked the snapshots and interesting timeline of this book. Everything was told from the perspective of the progressing present. At least with the audiobook, it was easy to understand who was speaking and in what time we were in.
The messages about loss, family, time, and life are very cute! I liked this book! Sure, it's dated and has stereotypical presentations of minorities with racist descriptions. It spoke to me on a few different levels, and I liked the book
Quotes:
“Don't you think it's better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?”
“Love the world and yourself in it, move through it as though it offers no resistance, as though the world is your natural element.”
“It's dark now and I am very tired. I love you, always. Time is nothing.”
“Why is love intensified by absence?”
“Time is priceless, but it's Free. You can't own it, you can use it. You can spend it. But you can't keep it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back.”
“We laugh and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost, or dead, or far away: right now we are here, and nothing can mar our perfection, or steal the joy of this perfect moment.”
This was good, but I debated between 3 and 4 stars. I went into the book thinking it was young adult fiction. It is not. But it was a good story that kept me hooked. I listened to an audiobook version and appreciated the presentation of the different narrators with different actors. In general, I would recommend this but probably only to adults.
DNF at 89%.....
I have a small amount left to read but it's impossible. Reading this is like walking on shards of glass.. pointless and painful.
I spent $16.99 on this book through audible and i can't even return it because i'm locked out of the account so not only was this a bad book but also a financial loss UGH.
This book itself a emotional travel for me. First few portions not getting/ hard to get into dates and age things. Next few chunks felt boring such as their dating, friends chats, too much of daily lifestyle descriptions, feelings about babies. I skimmed through them. And the last 150 pages thrown at me like a magnet and gelled me throughout the end. That's the stuff. It was hard at the end. Loved it. But i feel it should be less than 400 pages. That's it
The time travel in the book works in odd ways, and it's a little hard to believe that the main character doesn't have at least a little control over it, he appears in convenient locations throughout the book which lets him bond with his wife during a time when she is way too young for him. Even if he appears in a general location near her was a coincidence, he already knows in the future that she is his wife and he seeks to meet up with her, and not avoid her.
The characters of this book are bland, and forgettable especially everyone besides the main characters Clare, and Henry. But even the stuff we find out about the main characters isn't sufficient to establish a strong bond between them and the reader. A lot of stuff you find out about them is pretty gross or shallow. They already seem to live quite comfortable lives, but the time-traveling also provides cheat codes for them (which they only use when the plot demands it). You don't get to hear a ton about their work life which you would assume would be affected by time travel at random times.
The scenario sorta seems like a setup for smut, the sex scenes we do get have quite silly descriptions, and sometimes even other scenes have an odd choice of words.
There are a lot of parts in the book where the author throws a ton of adjectives, and lists of references (one time even a very long grocery list). There are also a ton of parts where nothing of interest happens.
The main character expresses negative views toward adoption that do not make any sense—questionable romanticism of pregnancy.
I took a peek into the prologue and fell into the story.
The freefall was a fantastic experience with garden variety romance, only chronologically misplaced. Nearing the end when the looming ‘thud' was apparent, I knew I had to start another book to soften the blow.
Henry travels in time and has no control over when or where that happens. He meets his wife for the first time, when he is in his late 30s and she is six. He has to leave Clare, with no promise of a time of return. It's like a love story written twice, because neither has the memory of the other when they first meet.
“I'm at a loss because I am in love with a man who is standing before me with no memories of me at all.”
There is something about describing or atleast mentioning smells and textures, that makes reading a book a more immersive experience. By the first few chapters, I was comfortable and cozy lying around in the dimly lit recesses of this unshapely story. It's quirky and fun, with writing that made my heart melt.
“Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass. Through each moment I can see infinite moments line up, waiting. Why has he gone where I cannot follow?”
Just to get this out of the way. The rating for this book is polarized. The one star-haters' main complaints are
1) It's a little Humbert humbertish.
It is reasonable that people find it creepy that a 40 year old guy meets his wife when she was 6, and could (in fact he couldn't), influence her whichever way he wanted. But the point is, that is not denied in the story at all. The author as well as Henry, seems apologetic, that it couldn't be any other way. It is just the way it happened. Which brings us to the second part.
2) Neither of them had a choice.
The novel stems from the premise of fate; that all of it has already happened and time is just flowing past us, rather than we moving forward. Henry himself says that, if you think you have no free will, it gets depressing. That's a note to the reader too. If you think too much of the choice they had, you wouldn't like it. Don't think. Just enjoy.
My only complaint is that the story was slightly, unnecessarily sad. It could have changed a teeny bit and still be able to pull at the heart strings, even without the gratuitous sadness.
“...had we but world enough and time”
I might read this again, in the know.
This is perhaps one of the most common books around for dividing opinion. It's a bit like marmite you either love it or you hated it. I fell absolutely into the loved it camp.
The story of Henry, a man who has the ability to literally move backwards and forwards throughout his own life is truly wonderful. The intertwined story of his love for Claire is one of the most engaging I have ever read. Yes, I can understand why some people find it far fetched and at times difficult to follow. All that jumping around through time means there is no chronological order to this book. Instead we are given snippets of what is to come and teasers and given as to what will transpire.
I loved the chapters where Henry met Claire as a young girl and chatted with her about how she would meet him in her future and they would fall in love. Building a love which she grew inside until the day his premonition came true and she did meet Henry at an age where they could have a loving adult relationship.
It is such a beautiful story that the whole time travelling actually doesn't need to make sense instead it's a book about an enduring love and the things we leave behind when we leave this world and those we touch along the way.
I loved Henry and Clare. I can't believe I became so involved in their lives. The whole concept of time being a factor in relationship, and the thoughts of it never really starting or ending kept me fascinated.
I can't think of much to recommend this one. The idea of the Time Traveler, Henry, who is suffering from a genetic disorder called “chrono-impairment” sounded interesting, but unfortunately the author never did anything with it. She fails to explore any of the philosophical, emotional, or scientific ideas of the effect this would have on Henry or Claire. It's a device; an impediment or complication to his romance with Claire, the title character.
This is mostly just a romance and doesn't really work for me on that level either. Other than the above mentioned device, there isn't much of anything interesting between these two. Claire has no personality whatsoever that I can grasp. Henry has slightly more of an inner life but no tension ever ratchets up in the story between them. She knows she's going to be his wife because of the various visits of his future self and she pretty much just accepts this. No rebellion, no exploration of other relationships, no real conflict....
The writing style didn't make it any better. Sure, it was an easy read, and I had some curiosity about where it was all going. But the passages were dull journal entries alternating between Claire and Henry and the language was stiff. There is no difference in the “voice” between the two characters and the dialogue was stilted.