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

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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riverofhorton's review against another edition

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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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