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| The Time Traveler's Wife | 
 enlarge | Author: Audrey Niffenegger
Publisher: Harvest Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $1.99
You Save: $12.01 (86%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (1677 reviews)
Sales Rank: 311
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 560
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.3 x 1
ISBN: 015602943X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780156029438
ASIN: 015602943X
Publication Date: May 27, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Smooth October 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a book of parts. Tasty parts that spread nougat goodness across my tongue and tender parts that swell in my chest.
This isn't a book about love, though it couldn't have been written without it. It's a book about abiding and about seeing the truth of things when even the best truth is another lie.
It's a very, very good book.
There's a Reason It's So Popular ... One of the Best Time Travel Novels I've Ever Read (And I've Read Lots) October 25, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I refused to read this book for ages because it was a trendy book with a trendy name. But now I understand everyone's love for it. I suppose that the way to get a sci-fi book to succeed is to not market it as a sci-fi book. This book is 100% a time travel novel, and it's done quite cleverly. The time traveler in question has a genetic mutation that makes him spontaneously time travel, so he lands in various times and places quite naked. He often runs into himself, but he also meets his wife when...more I refused to read this book for ages because it was a trendy book with a trendy name. But now I understand everyone's love for it. I suppose that the way to get a sci-fi book to succeed is to not market it as a sci-fi book. This book is 100% a time travel novel, and it's done quite cleverly. The time traveler in question has a genetic mutation that makes him spontaneously time travel, so he lands in various times and places quite naked. He often runs into himself, but he also meets his wife when he's an adult and she's a child. While she has known him all her life, he only knows her during his adulthood. It wasn't difficult to figure out where the book was going and when the roller coaster was going to plunge downhill. However, the process of reading the novel was quite satisfying. The author is able to create a world and quickly bring the reader comfortably inside it to be a watcher in the shadows. I'm definitely glad I finally broke down to read this book because it's certainly now among my all time favorites.
 Intriguing but profane October 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Obviously I'm used to the old classics and "nice" books. I bought this book on the recommendation of a fairly like-minded friend, and thought the plot looked good. I wasn't prepared for it to be smattered throughout with the "f" word, oral sex, and brief graphic violence. Also I thought the end was rather depressing. There was little about living life, and mostly about life being wrapped up in this one person. This would make a better movie than book in my opinion--and I very rarely choose movie over novel. I'm sure this book will be wildly popular, but if you're like me and enjoy a good read that makes you feel like a better person at the end vs. feeling brought down a moral notch or two, choose another book.
loved this book October 15, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I love the idea of time travel and have enjoyed similar stories from movies and books such as "Somewhere in Time" and "Wrinkle in Time".
The Time Traveler's Wife is one of my all-time favorite books. The author did a wonderful job weaving the different time sequences together and I thought she did a great job developing the characters.
It was a great read, and a bittersweet love story. I would highly recommend this book.
 To each his own, but seriously...urgh... October 10, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a copy of a post I made in the discussion forum, just thought I would expand it into a larger review. Spoilers, of course.
It's interesting how Henry meets Clare for the first time, sleeps with her, then decides he's "overcome with happiness" (page 16) and breaks up with Ingrid less than a day later. If you want to argue that it was love at first sight (which I don't believe in myself, personally) you might want to just ignore this comment entirely. I understand that his relationship with Ingrid was a troubled one, and that it would have ended anyway, but I just felt sorry for Ingrid. She's a sad character who has problems, and is, I think, far more interesting than Clare, who is about as bland and uninteresting as a wet dishcloth. Henry defends himself, saying that Ingrid was "patient. Overly patient. Willing to put up with odd behavior, in the hope that someday I would shape up and marry her...And when somebody is that patient, you have to feel grateful, and then you want to hurt them" (Niffenegger 161). Gee, does this remind us anyone in particular? Either this is sloppiness on the author's part, or Henry is just a hypocrite. Also, we don't really know how much the other characters know about Henry's condition. When did his father find out? When did Ingrid (who finds him in her apartment after he loses his feet and asks "When are you from?") find out?
Of course, some readers think this premise remarkably original. It's not! It's been done before. Read (or watch) Slaughterhouse Five if you want a similar premise written much more professionally.
I tried to like this book, I really did. Aside from my complete dislike of the characters, I think it would have been a better book if she had just cut out the second half entirely. Of course, considering all the drama and teeth-gnashing included in the second half, that might be why this book is so popular.
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