The Time Traveler’s Wife: A BubbleLove Review

Title: The Time Traveler’s Wife

Author: Audrey Niffenegger

Rating: 5/5

Book 9 of 100: (The 100+ Reading Challenge)

This is the extraordinary love story of Clare and Henry who met when Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-two and Henry thirty. Impossible but true, because Henry suffers from a rare condition where his genetic clock periodically resets and he finds himself pulled suddenly into his past or future. In the face of this force they can neither prevent nor control, Henry and Clare’s struggle to lead normal lives is both intensely moving and entirely unforgettable.

If the rating I’ve typed in above isn’t obvious enough, I’d say it again - The Time Traveler’s Wife is definitely one of the most wonderful books I’ve read in my lifetime. It’s very absorbing in the sense that the reader, not only Henry, a chronologically-displaced person, is pulled into this chaos called time.

It was pretty hard for me to juggle Chemistry homework and getting lost in this book. But I’d ditch anything for Niffenegger’s creativity, hands down. ^_^

This is the kind of read which convinces you in an instant - no matter how much you see fiction in it, you should still feel a tinge of reality. Time traveling may be hard to believe and harder to understand but, then again, what isn’t?

The way in which the story flows is not linear. The dates and Clare and Henry’s ages written just before each time frame comes in handy, though. In a nutshell, this is a story of two people whose past is another’s future. When they finally meet in the present, two and two still do not get put together as there are some things unknown and cannot be changed.

I was amused by the fact (uh, fact?) that whenever Henry time travels, he unintentionally leaves everything behind - his clothes and even his dental fillings. It must be horrible ending up somewhere public without any clothes on - horrible still when prison awaits you due to the previous statement. Clare’s wait must be the longest one I’ve heard of. She truly deserves her title, Wife, because she waits patiently for him to return without even knowing when or if he really will.

Quoting Clare:

With Henry, I can see everything laid out, like a map, past and future, everything at once, like an angel… I can reach into him and touch time… 

The ending did not leave me hanging. It was just as beautiful. Henry’s death made me weep while reading about it, however, I couldn’t help but smile on the part when Clare was already old and Henry still got to visit her, despite death. Despite time.

I’m looking forward to the film adaptation to be released this year. I’m hoping it’s just as good :]