Reviews with content warning for Cancer - The Time Traveler's Wife

I am not usually a tough critic, but I did not love this for several reasons.

1. This story (in my opinion) was told backwards, and would last the test of time better had it been told the other way around. Being about time travel, the story bounces around quite a bit. However, I would argue the story more closely follows Clare’s linear timeline. Before we actually get to know the two main characters as a couple, the first half of the book is about how Clare knew Henry as a child and teenager. We learn about Henry’s lustful thoughts about her even when she is underage, even when she is prepubescent, which made me very uncomfortable. In my opinion, had we learned about their adult relationship first by strictly following Henry’s timeline, and had Henry just straight up not had inappropriate thoughts about a CHILD, I think the relationship would seem less creepy (but let’s be honest, some of what happened would be creepy, inappropriate, and sick regardless).

2. About 200 pages of the 536 pages I read weren’t relevant. I don’t understand why certain scenes were necessary as they didn’t contribute to the plot, character development, or context of the story. The whole infidelity thing? For what.

3. INCONSISTENCIES. And inaccuracies. Some of this book just straight up didn’t make sense. I found myself wondering SO many times, “did the author do literally ANY research??” Yes, probably with certain art pieces and music mentioned in the story, but certainly not how pregnancy, miscarriage, birth, hypothermia, and other medical things work. Furthermore, so many times the book would mention something like “they decided to leave the kids at home!” And on the next page, “the kids were playing quietly in the corner.” Like did no one proofread this? I’m lost.

4. Sometimes it was really hard to understand who was speaking. The book bounces between Henry’s and Clare’s perspectives, but in sections of the dialogue there are long stretches with no indication of who is speaking. Several times I had to go back and reread to understand the context of what was happening and what the characters were feeling.

I felt like this was a great concept that was so poorly executed. This could be a fantastic, timeless love story, but it just fell flat for me. The writing combined with the characters who weren’t just flawed, but horrible people, ruined it for me.

Content Warnings

delvie's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

I went in blind, and I wasn't ready.

If not for some unfortunate stereotypes and slurs used and the gratuitous sex, it would have been a slam dunk five stars- the audiobook specifically. I think I would have hated this book in print.

Check TW's; I would not recommend this book if you use reading to escape.

The last 40 minutes hit so hard, I had to take my headphones out because I was on the threshold of tears.

I get why it's been adapted twice; I imagine you could do some pretty cool stuff via film with this premise.

I'm not gonna get over this for a while. Sheesh.

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mireyadiaz's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

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

4.0

Main problem as a genz reading this was actually the entire plotline with Gomez. I felt it wasn't really needed, at least not at the end like yikes. Other than that not a bad read, but then again I'm a sucker for time travel tropes just for complexities of the thought and possibility of it. Also, like the author is clearly white woman, because any person of a minority most likely would not continuously describe a person's ethnicity or weight whenever they see a new person. But luckily for me my default description of people is Latine like meself 🤓. But yeah... it just depends on your cup of tea. Also, I really found the Catholics kinda funny like in general.(as a catholic🤣) By that I mean there do be crazy ones like that, unless like my family, sin is expected and whatever.🤷🏽‍♀️

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anne152's review against another edition

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challenging dark hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.0

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ravensalwaysreading's review against another edition

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challenging dark 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? It's complicated

2.5

I can finally say that the movie was better, and that's because they left out or altered 75% of what was in the book.

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mergwenthur's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

0.5

This book is problematic in a lot of senses.

First of all, the time travelling doesn't make sense to me, it's always confusing for me anyway.

It's understood that Henry first met Clare when he was 28 and they were both adults but for Clare, she's known him since she was 6 and Henry was early 40s.

It was actually quite sad to see that Clare literally spent her whole life surrounded by Henry, waiting for him, loving him, wanting to be with him etc etc.

Atleast Henry was able to live his own life and go down his own routes and paths. Clare was not able to do that.

It made me uncomfortable for Henry groom Clare in that way. He was attracted to her when she was in her early-mid teens. He quite roughly kissed her when she was 15/16 and then slept with her on her 18th birthday.

Not only this but other problematic aspects within the book. The way the writer was 'descriptive' also made me uncomfortable.

What was the need to know the nurse was Black (and it was written in what felt like a passive aggressive way). Or to know 'an Indian doctor called Sue.'

To the author...erm.... the doc said nothing about their ethnicity but you wrote 'Indian' because you wanted to portray them as brown? Surely South Asian would make more sense. This just made your characters look stereotypical.

Also insensitive sentences about rape which added nothing to what the characters were saying. There are much better ways to say those things.

And the antisemitism ?? Yeah that was also not okay.

The film did a lot better in regards to being less problematic and harmful but overall, yeah. This book is not good.

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