Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - The Time Traveller's Wife

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

66 reviews

matcha_pages's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I didn't love this book and would have DNF'd it except that I was reading this for a challenge. At first glance this seems like an epic love story, where the lovers are separated by time. But when you really dive into Clare and Henry's realtionship across the years it gets complicated and creepy.
When Henry time travels to Clare as a kid and teenager he's between 30 - 40 years old. He's such an all consuming part of her life that it feels manipulative. When she finally turned 18 Henry was like 42, oof that was an age-gap I didn't want to know about. Even as adults, future-Henry meddles with present day Henry & Clare's relationship. These moments pose moral questions that the author casually skips over.

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abenetcarpenter's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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spectacles_and_books's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This broke me, in the best way. And I will never watch an adaptation, because this was perfect.

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nienora's review against another edition

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reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

There's no reason for this to be as long as it is. Seriously, it could've ended like three times and it just continued on. Especially last part is just repeated scene for five times.

Henry and Claire are so annoyingly rich, and it shows in the way they talk and act. Sooo pretentious and annoying, they're horrible people.
Also, Claire is Catholic and it gets mentioned all the time. Abortus not being an option is said more than once. I can't decide is it trying to be critical of Catholic values or supports them.
Their relationship relies on you just accepting that they're destined for each other and love each other. Their whole 'chemistry' is that they grope each other any chance they get. They speak for barely 2 minutes and someone's hand wanders under shirt... I mean, they were fine when Claire is young but as soon as they meet up in present timeline it's just sex.

I know people say that Henry groomed Claire, but if anything, they groomed each other equally. Everything gets convoluted and mixed up when there's time travel involved. It asks is there a choice and free will or is everything already predestined to happen, so it will, undoubtedly, happen.

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beatrizdizon_'s review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

You know in Twilight when Jacob imprinted on Renesmee, and it’s all icky and weird because it was bound to be romantic despite him being a full-grown adult and her a wee baby? I guess this makes me one of the people who doesn’t like how Henry and Clare met in The Timetraveler’s Wife. I didn’t mind that they got together, then I wouldn’t have read the book in the first place — it’s already in the title: WIFE. It just baffles me how they couldn’t just be both kids or at least the same age when Henry time-jumps to her. They meet in the present when Clare is 20 but for her, it has always been Henry. Henry is the person she knows she’ll dedicate her whole life to.

That’s what it felt like. It is as though Clare’s life revolved around Henry. Even in the two years they were apart, she was shattered and messy for him. Everything is for him.

Except the premise of the book had such great potential to make an interesting plot. Instead, we deal with characters I couldn't care less about or at least root for. Clare’s struggles and loneliness with a husband who constantly and unwillingly disappears have an appeal as a subject. That only materialized in the second half, I should not have to fight this much to enjoy a book!

I have a bone to pick with the writing: Ingrid’s ending, Gomez’s character, but specifically Henry’s POV. I hate that he constantly tells us that he knows what will happen and that he’s a time traveler. Like okay? We know too, damn, no need to spell it out. Let the readers be thrilled too and just show us.

Also, there were too many unnecessary mentions of breasts and r*pe. Especially for the latter, as if humans do not commit a plethora of wrongful deeds for a person to cite.

I admit that there were moments I was moved, shedding a few tears here and there, hence 2.75. Still, I had to let that semi-rant out. But to be honest, I would have DNF’ed this if I wasn’t annotating it for my best friend. I have been looking forward to talking to her about this, and I can’t if I only know a small percentage of the material.

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emeraldrose809's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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agw622's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is such a captivating book. The time traveling is well handled. The overlaps are used to add suspense especially at the end. It can be quite intense and sad at places. While not a happy read, it's an amazing read.

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cas_symonds's review against another edition

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1.0

The grooming and underage sexualization of the main female character by the main male character is just too much for my liking. Including a mammy trope in 2004 in just distasteful.

I did not care for the writing style at all.

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onabookban's review against another edition

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emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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tvintrs's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

This book is technically written very well. It's easy to read and personally I found it relatively easy to keep track of the different ages and years within each chapter as Niffenegger helpfully starts each one with the pivotal character's ages. Some of the dialogue feels a bit out of place in the character's mouths but on the whole the text itself is quite easy to get into. I listened to most of the book through audiobook, but then finished with the physical written copy and found both as easy as the other.
That, however, is largely where my personal enjoyment of the book ends. I'm not a huge romance book reader so going in this was already hard for me to get into, but at times I found the themes quite uncomfortable to read through and skipped a large section of one of the chapters

which focused on the newly 18 year old Clare losing her virginity to a 40+ year old Henry

. I can see how some people would fall in love with the characters and enjoy their love story but I just found it vaguely uncomfortable the whole time.

How an adult Henry visits a 13 year old Clare, knowing he is going to marry her and commenting on her ''blossoming breasts'' just veered this way out of being romantic to me and I couldn't get the idea of grooming out of my head for most of it. The way Clare is trained to constantly wait for him her whole life, feeling guilty for letting her eye stray when he's off with others unaware of her existence, just didn't sit right for me, personally. The whole storyline around the miscarriage was incredibly dodgy too and the eventual pregnancy bordered on dubious consent.

However, if this book isn't meant to be just a romantic story and was intended to have problematic aspects then I'd say it hit the mark perfectly in how the story weaves through their lives and shows the impact of meeting Henry on Clare's life and how she almost becomes stationary while he keeps moving. A rippling wave meeting the shore and settling, even if briefly. Alba is a pure joy to read and I would have loved to have seen more of her and known her fate, but equally I think the book ended on a relatively good note so can't be too upset at that. Would I read it again? No, probably not. Do I think it's terrible? Also no. As long as you don't go in with rose tinted glasses and see the relationship for what it is, I think it can be a fascinating read.

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