The Time Traveler's Wife

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 is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself misplaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity in 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. All of this is threatened by something they can neither prevent nor control, making their story intensely moving and entirely unforgettable.
-- Summary borrowed from this website

Yesterday I finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife, and whoa! was it good! Good, and intense, and riveting. I was totally sucked in! And I have to admit that it made me cry. (But then, that's nothing too surprising: lots of books have made me cry and for lots of different reasons. Maybe someday I'll divulge my weak emotional restraint when sucked into a good story. Maybe.)

Though it is about two people affected by time travel, this book is by no means a fantasy. It's incredibly realistic and familiar. Though very unusual, Chrono-Displacement Disorder might as well be a medically possible as the common cold. I appreciated how Niffenegger helped me as the reader keep track of everywhere Henry was "visiting." At the beginning of each section, she'd list the date(s) and ages of Henry and Clare, so not only would I know when in time the story currently was, I would know from what place in time Henry was coming from.

The book is very detailed and covers basically the entire lifetimes of Henry and Clare. And it is told from the point of view of both characters. So because I got to see so much of their lives and because I got to hear it told from both of them, it was hard not to find myself relating to them both on several levels. Henry and Clare and their story was about as real to me as if it was happening to myself, and that's probably why I cried.

A question raised several times throughout the book is that of whether or not it's good to know your future (assuming you had the opportunity to find out). Henry takes the stance that unless it's absolutely necessary for someone to know something in their future, it's probably best if he keeps his knowledge of it to himself. He believes that it's safer that way. I mostly agree with him. Yeah, I'm sure it's safer to just not know and live your life as you would anyway. But at the same time, though, it pretty much kills me when I have to be left in the dark while someone close to me basks in knowledge that I can't know yet. Though I like to pretend that they aren't, surprises are difficult for me to wait for.

Anyway, good book. Fascinating book! I definitely recommend it.*


*However, I should say, for those of you who are more sensitive than I apparently am, there is a bit of language in this book. So if a colorful way of expressing things is not up your alley, you might want to read something else.