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

I quite liked the first half of the book up to the wedding, but then enjoyed it less and less. It's a really interesting concept, often well-executed and the non-linear storytelling worked well. It was particularly interesting to see characters interacting in a variety of stages of their lives.

Now for the problems. The second and third part of the book get increasingly depressing in a way that felt like traumatising events were being being piled on for no reason. The characters barely have time to react to each of these events so they don't feel fully developed, just added in for shock value.

It was very disappointing how little agency and personality the titular wife had. Clare was interesting to read about as a child, then she became much more bland as an adult. It was really all about Henry, so naming the book after Clare is not representative of the role she takes.

Another disappointment was that a lot of characters' shitty behaviour has no repercussions whatsoever, Gomez and Celia especially rubbed me the wrong way. It doesn't get called out, nobody reacts to it, and it often doesn't cause any problems. When that happens too often, it feels very unsatisfying to me and when it happens with the main characters it calls their romance into question.

Even worse, there was a major part of the story later on, that consumed some of the characters completely for a long time, and then it suddenly turned into an afterthought. It seems that the author didn't know what to do with Alba as a character, so she was simply turned into a Mary Sue that's somehow immune to all of the aforementioned trauma. It's very unrealistic to think of what she goes through, yet no one seems to care about her and she continues to be quite happy-go-lucky.

Some of the time traveling concepts fell apart towards the end, with several aspects that should have been relevant being swept under the table. There's no real or implied resolution to what might be causing it, whether there will be more time travelers in the future, how society treats them, etc. With these topics ignored, it only barely fits into the sci-fi genre. It's really more a romance with a quirky setting.

Finally, there was some really out-of-touch racism and social commentary at times. POC, queer and disabled characters were handled terribly and I was especially weirded out by the term "Auschwitz thin" and a character's insistence that an adopted child wouldn't really be theirs, especially because nobody offered an alternative opinion on that statement. The book really needed more editing to cut out all of that.

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val_theburrowofstories's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

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

4.0

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potsnpots's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

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

3.5

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ejoymiller11's review against another edition

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emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

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.

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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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kadtide's review

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emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

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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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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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