The Time Traveler’s Wife – Fin

I know it’s not on my book challenge, but I just finished reading The Time Traveler’s Wife today. I’ll try not to spoil the ending.

First off, I liked it because it was unique. Typically stories about time travel make my eyes go crossed. Have you seen the movie with Denzel Washington – Deja Vu? Uhg, terrible. Well, this book wasn’t quite like that. As I’ve said in a previous post, the time traveler, Henry, moves through time both backward and forward. It’s a precarious situation considering he leaves his clothes in whatever time he is in when he travels. It’s a dangerous business showing up in someone’s backyard or a subway station in any kind of weather in the nude.

This leaving-your-clothes situation creates an awkward first meeting with his wife – a six-years-old child at the time – when he shows up in her backyard completely naked. And here is the problem I see in the novel. Nothing sinister happens and you really don’t get the sense that something will happen, but there is just something a little creepy about the nude 40-year-old and the six-year-old child. Just sayin’. Luckily, I was able to get past this by page 120 and didn’t really dwell on it for the rest of the novel.

If you’re looking for a happy story, this is not it. I did, however, find it very “true.” The “science-fictiony” plot points in the novel were almost superfluous to the relationship between Henry and Clare. While it gave an interesting twist to a “meet and fall in love” story, their lives together gave a touching and sometimes brutal depiction of falling in love, getting married, having children, and losing the ones you love…and waiting.

Have fun reading. I hope I didn’t give too much away.