There are some glowing reviews for Audrey Niffenegger’s first novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife, and I believe they are well warranted. Rarely do I find myself genuinely upset when finishing a book due to the knowledge that soon I will fail to have the joy of it sitting on my lap. Rarely do I feel so connected to the characters in a novel that I forgo sleep in order to get just one more chapter in. Well as rarely as this happens, it happened with this book.

The story is about a man who, due to a genetic disorder, spontaneously time travels, often to points in his life, present and past. The nonlinearity of the story draws you in and constantly has you wondering when an event happened and how it relates to the bigger story. Aside from this fascinating take on reality, the love story that Niffenegger tells is simultaneously heart warming and wrenching. The connection between the two lovers, Henry, the time-traveling protagonist, and Claire, his wife, spans all normal understanding of what love is and how it progresses through time.

The book also raises some interesting questions about causality and free will. Can one change the course of events when traveling back in time? Is the future occurring at the same time as the present and the past? Questions like this will make you wish that The Time Traveler’s Wife were twice as long as it was.

Take my advice: buy the book, read it, and thank me later.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 2:27 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.