I'd have to say that it's been over a decade since I gave serious thought to not finishing a book--I'm meticulous about finishing books that I start. That said, I gave serious thought to throwing this book away unfinished when I was halfway through. As is, it will be the first book in years that I give away without any desire to hold it for my own library.

This may be a page-turner, but it is constantly sad, tragic, and depressing. The writing isn't bad, but it's also not anything worth reading for its own beauty and worth. Niffenegger came up with a good premise for a story, but left out those aspects which could make the book redeemable, or great.

First, the interest of a romance book comes from the characters falling in love with one another, and from conflict. Here, it is ONLY conflict. The characters are simply in love with each other, but though we see their whole relationship, we never see them fall for one another. It's circular, which I suppose was either an oversight or an easy answer from the author--either way, it's a frustration once one sees what's happening. Henry is in love with Clare because she's fallen in love with him. However, Clare is in love with Henry because he was in love with her when he met her (her having already fallen in love with him). It would be simple enough to show each character falling in love, but we see none of it. Both characters at different points are either entirely in love or simply not in love. If you think about this, you'll see it's true, though the author's fast-moving plot (however predictable it is) does a good job of masking this huge aspect that she has, simply, left unwritten and unmentioned.

Conflict, though, is everywhere, to the extent that it's nearly unbelievable that two people can be so incredibly unlucky. The circle of plot seems to be that whenever the author feels things are getting mundane, she throws in another tragedy, or another detail of an already mentioned tragedy which makes it all the more tragic. In other words, there are so many, so often, that they as single events lose their power. Additionally, the characters are ridiculously well-adjusted for having gone through all they've supposedly gone through---I have to think that Niffenegger may have been worried about the chronology and plotting of time here, but she wasn't worried about the believability of the characters or the psychology of the events and characters as presented.

I should say, I'm not opposed to tragedy, or to dark books. However, when a book is written simply to be a tear-jerker, when I feel the author is simply playing darkly with her characters and with my emotions for the heck of it as opposed to for the story, and when I feel that the tragedies separately serve no purpose, I see no purpose for the book. An author should be true to the story they create, not their own whims of destruction.

Life is too short to read a book who's sole value is painting many tragedies without tangible enough happiness to balance Anything, let alone the book. Someone might argue that the true love pictured in the book balances the sadness out, but since the author neglects to show us where that love comes from, or even how its arisen, it's difficult to find it a believable love as opposed to something that simply has to be there for the story, and so, is. I'm not sure, honestly, where all the hype came from on this book; I simply found it maudlin and depressing for the last three-hundred pages, not to mention predictable, and the pieces which I was most interested in learning were left out entirely or treated ambiguously and briefly. Certainly, the author started with a wonderful idea, but I have to say that in my opinion, she didn't do a worthwhile job with it--she simply got it done, and sold.

I don't recommend it--to anyone, and I won't be wasting my time with this author in the future. ( )

I don't know totally how I feel about this one. It was an easy read, I finished it pretty quickly (within 2 days).

The characters I didn't feel were fully developed, there were a lot of plot-holes and the time-jumping I found a little confusing. It took me a while to really figure out what was going on - at first I thought perhaps Henry would be an Alziemers patient or someone with dementia, reliving past experiences, rather than literally time traveling, and I didn't like how the author tried to rationalise it as a genetic brain disease, as I don't think that was um, just all that believeable either. (Though I guess she had to come up with something, that didn't make it a sci-fi novel.)

The characters all seemed too perfect - artists, musicians (other than Henry, who is apparently not musical - but naturally his children are, as well as being pretty, smart, and funny!), rich. Just not totally unbelievable, they didn't feel like 'real' people.

I still felt attached by the end (I think it is the first person narrative that does it, it makes you feel more 'there') and I admit I did cry a bit. I think the author has a lovely writing style, some paragraphs are gorgeously phrased, very atmospheric and sometimes she really does touch upon how people really feel (such as how people cope with grief), but then she'll come out with things like "an erection that is big enough to ride at the fairground", which is cringe-worthy. And there are quite a few (graphic!) sex scenes, too, which I wasn't entirely comfortable with.

So a mixed review, I suppose, but it gets 4/5 because obviously despite its glaring faults, it did seem to touch me and make me think a bit - not something every book can do. ( )

"The Time Traveler's Wife" follows the life of Henry, a man with a strange genetic mutation which makes him travel through time spontaneously. The one thing in life that makes Henry's life worth living is Clare, his wife, who he lives with in the present and visits through time. Although Henry and Clare's love is complicated and challenged by Henry's time traveling, in some ways it makes their bond stronger. This beautiful love story gives a whole new angle to "I will love you forever".

I don't know why I waited so long to read this book--it was fantastic! The time traveling aspect of the novel does take a little getting used to--but I found that I got used to it pretty quickly. Niffenegger's writing style is vivid and emotional, which does a great job of pulling the reader right into Henry's world. The book reads fast, which left me quickly wishing there was more of it to enjoy! ( )

No doubt you'll have heard of this so I won't summarise the plot. A great book with a fresh central concept and some very moving moments. Very difficult to put down and highly recommended. ( )

I loved this book. It has that forward-backward plot time thing going on where you don't really know what's going on until the very end. It's a great love story for those of you that can't get enough of that. The main character is richly portrayed and quite interesting. For those of you that love to read, this is a must. Hopefully, they won't screw up the movie. ( )