Audrey NiffeneggerReviews

Short, but still meaningful. Not entirely sure, to be honest, what is the purpose of the collection in the bookmobile: It's every book they've read, and they can't take out anything from the collection. So other than viewing in a single gulp your reading progress, I don't see how it inspires one to do what she did. Arguably she was having more impact on future readers as an actual librarian.

But once you overlook the holes in the actual story, it still offers a persuasive account of the power of reading.½

DNF.

Trust your instincts y'all. I knew it was a bad idea trying this again after having donated my original copy about... 5 years ago?

Just not a fan of the writing style & story. I am, however, very excited to see the new adaptation will have Kate Siegel in it.

This is really a very short story with illustrations rather than a proper graphic novel. The premise is intriguing and I was drawn in by the picture showing some of her childhood books, so many of which I had also read. But the early promise seemed to peter out and change to frustration and a sad ending. It owes a lot, as mentioned by the author, to an H.G. Wells short story, The Door in the Wall (available at Project Gutenberg).

I forgot how good this is. I should make a map of all the places she mentions.

I really despised the characters and the premise was poorly executed. Time traveling in the nude to meet your future wife when she is six is just not a great plot premise. Some of the twists and turns are hard to follow. Henry is a shallow sociopath. Some of the dialogue seems stilted. The writing wasn't bad overall, but the author name- dropped in all to obvious attempt to be both cool and cultured.
I was tempted to abandon the book but I kept hoping that it would get better. I doesn't. I would not recommend it to anyone. I gave it two stars because I found some events in the latter part of the book fairly interesting.

This novel starts and maintains a level of normalcy and maintains it throughout although it gets quite bizarre with ghosts haunting the apartment and tv and kittens getting killed…
But the best part is Martin with his crippling OCD and love for his wife Marijke and his vow to leave his apt and travel to her in Amsterdam.

I read this for the "A Book About Time Travel" part of my 2019 reading challenge. I enjoyed it, but sometimes it was hard to follow the timelines and Henry could be a bit annoying.

This book is terrible. I can't believe there is so much hype about it. Once I started, I was determined to finish, however. Sadly, as the book goes on, it only gets more ridiculous. The only good thing I can say about this book is that I'm finally finished reading it.

Family Drama

Strange and sad story of man who time travels uncontrollably .

I love the ideas behind both of the Niffenegger novels-in-pictures that I've read: _The Adventuress_ and now _The Night Bookmobile_. however, I feel like her stories are told in just a little too explicit a fashion, without room for my imagination, while also fairly emotionally flat. Perhaps a collaborator, a different editor, or time will remedy. Or perhaps it is her style, and I will always wish that the singular, fascinating ideas that come from her mind, were told my a different storyteller; but others are perfectly happy with the style-- including Ms.Niffennegger!

I also think that her books are in need of a different illustration style: one that alludes to the fantastic nature of these stories that draws in curious minds. Something less like a neatly done high school/ undergrad poetry magazine drawing.

While I appreciate the impetus to be an auteur of sorts, and tend all aspects (idea, story development, text, typography, and graphics), I can't wait until I see that she is collaborating with someone/s. I think that project will be really good stuff!

Story: 6 / 10
Characters: 8
Setting: 7
Prose: 7

I sort of swear off contemporary books (less than 20 years old) as a child. Many were autobiographical fiction and had little structure, assuming their own factual importance. I read this because I did not have any time to find a book for my 3 month trip to Europe and my mom had this lying around. However, since I was trying to find broaden my literary genres and venture into romance, this science fiction blend seemed like a proper compromise.
I loved it. There certainly are a few minor structural problems due to the time changes, but it altogether brilliant and original. Too bad more people do not appreciate it.

"The Time Traveler's Wife" is one of the most interesting, powerful books I've read in a long time. Audrey Niffenegger did a beautiful job taking some of the most complex ideas - time travel, marriage, love, children, friends, literary and artistic allusions, religion, death, drugs, childhood, growing, loss, and what it means to be human - and weaving them together poetically and with amazing clarity. Her characters are wonderful, "real" people with strengths and flaws, and I really grew to adore them. Despite skipping around time at the same rate as Henry, the time traveler, the events are sequenced in such a way that you still witness each character's growth as a person, as well as discover many surprises along the way. Clare and Henry's story is one of the best love stories I've read in a very long time. This book also echoes important modern-day questions about the appropriateness of gene therapy, and what it means to be a human being. I highly and enthusiastically recommend this book.

Great book, great idea.

The story is a little dis-jointed, as a time travel novel might be. I liked it, but liked the HBO show better. Listened to it on Audible.½

Even better the second time around and so much better than the movie. :)

I don’t know….it was fine. Too many words. I understand the author is a paper artist but making Clare a paper artist added very little. I didn’t need any of those tedious details. The story dragged with some of that detail, and it lumbered to it’s end. It had its charms but I won’t really miss it that much. I’m not sure I really liked the characters that much, as smart and…smug as they were about themselves. And some of the minor characters? I don’t know, man.

A good collection of old and new classic ghost stories, from Poe to Gaiman. Nothing too scary, but every story was good and some were excellently quirky (Honeysuckle Cottage). A perfect read for a night by the fire.

Ooooh, this is pretty. Sparse text, next to spare aquatint prints. Very nice. Something between Anke Feuchtenberger and Edward Gorey (perhaps like a comic written and drawn by the former, redrawn and packaged by the latter), but still with its own identity. An allegorical, dream-like story, with a female protagonist - I don't want to say more so as not to give too much away, but if that sounds at all appealing then I'd advise you to read this. I took it out from the library, but it's a book I'd be very pleased to have on my shelves.

I had to settle on three stars. There were parts that I absolutely loved, and parts that made me gag... Overall I enjoyed reading it and I like that it made me think, but I think it could have been executed better.

Five stars for overall concept and thought provocation. Less for enjoyment of reading.

I think this book might, might, might be a 4.75 instead of a 5, but then again, I might be judging it too harshly since her first book (the Time Traveler's Wife) is so perfect and lovely. You see, I think this is a nearly perfect book too, but I'm not sure I loved it in quite the same way as the other. I can't imagine how these stories unfold in her mind, because they are so intricate and so dependent on minutiae that it seems almost impossible to write such a book so flawlessly. My only criticism would be that I came to care for the characters only late in the book (maybe 100 pages in), meaning that I got to spend less time with them than I would have liked after I really cared about them and understood each one's point of view. I must give serious points for controlled creepiness; there are parts of this book that are downright terrifying, except that somehow the events described seem logical and normal at the same time. I will certainly re-read this one, as I have re-read her other one so many, happy times.

When Elspeth Noblin dies of cancer, she leaves her London apartment to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina. These two American girls never met their English aunt, only knew that their mother, too, was a twin, and Elspeth her sister. Julia and Valentina move to Elspeth's flat, which borders Highgate Cemetery in London. They come to know the building's other residents. There is Martin, a brilliant and charming crossword puzzle setter suffering from crippling Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; Marjike, Martin's devoted but trapped wife; and Robert, Elspeth's elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. As the girls become embroiled in the fraying lives of their aunt's neighbors, they also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including--perhaps--their aunt, who can't seem to leave her old apartment and life behind.

This is a tough book to review without giving too much away, so this will be a short review!

Quicker read than I thought this was going to be, this is not a repeat of the Time Traveller's wife. It's a straight linear narrative of Elspeth dying, leaving her flat to her twin nieces (one literally the mirror image of the other) and what happens over the next year when they come from the US to stay.

Highgate Cemetery makes a great "guest billing". The OCD neighbour upstairs seems to accept new people in his apartment a little to easily (especially since his wife of 20 years has just left him because of his compulsions) but on the whole it's an enjoyable book if I found it a less heart wrenching book the TTTW.

Wow. What a beautiful story. While I realize, reading this in 2021, there are parts that may be problematic, I'm absolutely floored at the amount of intelligence it had to have taken to craft a story like this... the research, the math, the sitting with emotion. I can't believe it took me this long to get around to reading it... but I'm thankful to have spent time with the exquisite and playful prose in this novel, and to have this story to remember in my own future.

Definitely a MUST read.