I received this book for free from the library in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Source: the library
The Time Traveler’s Wife
by
Audrey Niffenegger
fiction in eBook edition that was published by Zola Books on September 23, 2013 and has 500 pages.
Explore it on Goodreads or Amazon, Audibles.
A standalone fictional love story.
My Take
It’s a lovely and so very sad love story. Read it only if you enjoy a weepy tale. I love that I’ve read it but I hate that I cried and cried and cried.
The story moves back and forth: Always forward for Clare while Henry is never quite sure when or where he is. It begins with an older man, Henry, who pops in to visit a six-year-old girl, Clare, and continues throughout their lives. While Henry knows everything of Clare’s life from the beginning, we only learn of Henry’s pre-Clare history when Henry and Clare begin their life together.
It’s a sweet tale of a normal life, or, at least, as normal as it can be when one half of a couple suddenly disappears into the future/past. What’s intriguing is how Niffenegger manages to weave normal concerns with Henry’s time traveling creating both tension and hope — Clare and Henry had so very much and so very little all at once. The most amazing marriage of secrets and truth, love and tolerance.
I wanted this to end differently — they deserved so much more. And so beautiful to read the poetry that Henry loved.
Henry is a librarian who speaks several languages, loves poetry, and is a punk rocker with an historian’s love of music while Clare is a paper artist specializing in birds. The family and friends who surround them are intriguing; it amazes me how many are brought into the secret and how well they handle it.
The Cover
The cover is so appropriate considering the amount of time the older Henry has spent visiting with the younger Clare while combining a faint presence of Alba.
