Book Review - The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Synopsis: Audrey Niffenegger's innovative debut, The Time Traveler's Wife, is the story of Clare, a beautiful art student, and Henry, an adventuresome librarian, who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-three and Henry thirty-one. Impossible but true, because Henry finds himself periodically displaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity from his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing.

The Time Traveler's Wife depicts the effects of time travel on Henry and Clare's marriage and their passionate love for each other, as the story unfolds from both points of view. Clare and Henry attempt to live normal lives, pursuing familiar goals - steady jobs, good friends, children of their own.

First Line: "It's hard being left behind."

Random Quote: "Henry says, "You talk about changing the future, but for me this is the past, and as far as I can tell there's nothing I can do about it. I mean, I tried, and it was the trying that made it happen. If I hadn't said something, you wouldn't have gotten up ..." "

Review: I tend to be really wary of books that everyone says you have to read because it's the best ever. So I avoided picking this one up for quite awhile. I found I was really interested in her second book and I figured I should read the first one first, so I did.

This book was just okay for me. The device (the time traveling guy and his long-term

The Newberry Library - Chicago - Image by leah the librarian via Flickr

relationship) was really really cool. The way the time traveling was handled and the sort of universal breaking of lots of the established rules about time travel (thou shalt not meet thyself or thine world will end kinda thing) was original and handled with lots of verve. She writes well and I liked how well she established time and place through mention of bands of the time period and clubs and whatnot. I think some people should get over themselves when they complain about "name checking."

Now, on to what mostly didn't work for me - Henry and Clare. How wonderful that they had this great big mythic love. How awful that the author couldn't manage to make me believe in it, mostly because Clare is so poorly written that it is almost impossible to differentiate her from any other random character. I'm okay with the main narrator having the most fully fleshed voice and other characters being, well, less. But if a mythic romance is at the center of your time traveling story both halves of that romance ought to feel real and Clare just doesn't work for me.

Ultimately, there were big chunks of this book that I really enjoyed, but I think the coolest thing about it - the time traveling device - was also its downfall. I'm still interested to read Her Fearful Symmetry (I'm a sucker for a good ghost story) and more interested now that I've read the first book. Niffenegger is a writer with a lot of interesting promise - let's see if she lives up to it.

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