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Thursday, January 17, 2008

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Wow. Just Wow. How does someone possibly come up with this stuff? People have been telling me to read The Time Traveler’s Wife for months, and I was a bit intimidated by the popularity of it. Just look at my review of Twilight to see how that turned out last time for me! (Please note the lovely comment that review got!)

Here’s the summary of the book:
A dazzling novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the remarkable story
of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily
through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential
course. Henry and Clare’s passionate love affair endures across a sea of time
and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap, and it is Audrey
Niffenegger’s cinematic storytelling that makes the novel’s unconventional
chronology so vibrantly triumphant.


Everyone was right- this book is so good! If it’s on your list and you keep putting it off, move it up to the front. It’s not science fiction-y at all. There was only one incident that made me question how the time travel followed the rules she had set and I was able to figure out the answer. Henry is the perfect hero and clearly madly in love with Claire. I had a few minor quibbles with just how many people knew about his condition, but other than that, no problems with the book at all. I finished it last weekend, and I’m still thinking about it all the time, which hasn’t happened to me for a while now (A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Book Thief being the most notable from 2007.) It seems odd that the second book I read this year will be one of the best, but it seems likely that it’s going to happen that way. If you haven’t read it yet, or find yourself intimidated, please, go get it now. It’s really worth it. If you started it already, and got a bit confused by the beginning, stick with it- you eventually get into the flow of it.

11 comments:

  1. I was one of those people who thought this book was awful. I couldn't finish it. I know I am in the minority! Glad you liked it though!!

    =) Jill
    http://mrstreme.livejournal.com

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  2. I loved this book - it was just do delightful and fun. A great, great story.

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  3. Although too graphic for my tastes, I loved this book and can't wait for the movie with Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana. I love both as actors and highly anticipate seeing them playing these roles.

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  4. It's a brilliantly written book and I hope we see more from this author soon.

    I think the movie stands a chance to be even better than the book because I think some of the elements of time-travel will be easier to illustrate through film.

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  5. Yay!!! I'm so glad you liked this one. Even two years later I am still thinking about this one--and would like to read it again (one day). There are a few things in the book that confuse me a little bit (namely Henry being in the field and being behind Claire's father and brother telling her "shhhh").

    But you talk about freezer books--I think this is the only book that I have thought...I can't read any more. I can't. I remember sitting on my bed at 2 o'clock in the morning after finishing and just crying and crying. I LOVE THIS BOOK! :)

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  6. Trish, that's the one point I had a problem with. I decided that there must not have been two of him there. That the second one got there after the first one left somehow. Which, still doesn't make complete sense, I mean, there would have to be two of him there in the future at some point for him to know that's what happened. My brain hurts when I think to hard about it.

    In any case, I totally loved it.

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  7. I'm one of the people who keep putting it off. :-) I'm more leery of the romance story in the book than I am the science fiction. I don't mind sci fi or fantasy aspects, but I can be really picky when it comes to romance. I am planning to read the book this year though. Everyone says I should, so I might as well. :-)

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  8. I loved this book :-) I'd like to read it again someday.

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  9. Interesting! People have been telling ME to read it for months too, and I didn't for the same reasons. Maybe I need to...

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  10. I think this book has to be one of my all-time favorites... I read it on recommendation from many people at BookCrossing. It's one of the few that I've passed on to my MIL (we have similar tastes, but I have to hold back certain kinds of content). Glad you loved it!

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  11. I could not put this book down. I can't wait to see the upcoming film version, and read anything else this author writes in the future.

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