Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

16 reviews

spectacles_and_books's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage

Moderate: Addiction, Death, Infertility, Sexual content, Alcoholism, Blood, Death of parent, Cancer, Car accident, and Drug use

Minor: Sexual assault

agw622's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Mental illness, Suicide, Car accident, Death of parent, Miscarriage, Grief, and Self harm

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Sexual assault, and Alcoholism

Minor: Sexual content

tvintrs's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault and Sexual content

Minor: Miscarriage and Car accident

edg5000's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Suicide, Death, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Blood

Minor: Sexual assault and Car accident

riverofhorton's review against another edition

I had to take a couple of days to cool off after deciding to stop reading this book, I just found there to be too much homophobia, racism, and misogyny to continue.

The final straw for me was getting jumpscared by an utterly needless homophobic slur (as it was until very recently) less than 100 pages in. Given the 'past' parts of the book are set in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, I could have deal with some casual prejudice, so as the world was at that time, especially if it were there to make a point and/or portray that character as being a negative person. But these prejudices are not only blatant, but could have been removed from the story without it losing anything.

And there is also the moral weirdness surrounding the relationship between itself. From Claire's perspective, she first met Henry at the age of ~5 years old, when he was in his 40s. He visited her regularly growing up, even waiting for her to turn 18 so he could have sex with her on her birthday. Sounds creepy, right? From his perspective though, he first her in his late 20s, her being early 20s, and the relationship proceeded somewhat normally to begin with, only a couple of mentions of how long she has known a future version of him. It's just kind of a mess, and considering he could time travel as a child as well, I don't quite understand why he couldn't have been a child of a similar age, or even have the whole thing contain within their respective adulthoods.

It's such a shame, the basic premise of two people falling in love out of sync because of time travel has the potential to be incredible, but this was just a disappointment. It's the first book I've ever DNFed, and it saddens me that it's a Sci-Fi book (one of my favourite genres) that can claim that title.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Child abuse, Death of parent, Sexism, Kidnapping, Sexual harassment, Torture, Classism, Mental illness, Gaslighting, Hate crime, Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Alcohol, Abortion, Sexual content, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Bullying, Racism, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Car accident, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Body shaming, Physical abuse, Ableism, Sexual assault, Miscarriage, Rape, Stalking, and Violence

valeria_balzan's review against another edition

reflective relaxing slow-paced

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

2.5

This book was alright. It had an awesome setup but I think it was missing some plot. I understand the book mostly centers about Claire and Henry and their "love story" but I did not care about them or the other characters at all (or what happened to them, for that matter.)

I feel like the author had great opportunities to push the limits of time travelling and how it can impact a person's Henry's life but he is just boring and hates this ability.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Infertility, Death, Adult/minor relationship, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Alcoholism, Bullying, Rape, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Death of parent, and Grief

Moderate: Blood and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Abandonment and Mental illness

reading_christine's review against another edition

This is not the sweet but sad love story I was expecting. Why does no one talk about how creepy this book is? How disturbing some of the sexual content is? I think people pick this up expecting a story like The Notebook and they get something completely different. Reader beware!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Sexual content, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Sexual assault

Minor: Fatphobia

justinelilyh's review

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: Sexual assault

georgiatheresa's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

1.5

Yikes. The author sure is good with words, but otherwise this is awful. A pretentious, cliche, and boring man travels through time to groom and rape his future wife. Just yuck.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Adult/minor relationship, Miscarriage, and Rape

Moderate: Misogyny, Child death, Sexism, Suicide, Death of parent, Chronic illness, and Infertility

jessthanthree's review against another edition

adventurous emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Sexual assault