The Time Traveler's Wife

Category: Must Read, Romance, What to read after Twilight

Publisher's Summary: A dazzling novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate love affair endures across a sea of time and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap, and it is Audrey Niffenegger's cinematic storytelling that makes the novel's unconventional chronology so vibrantly triumphant.

What Do I think?

Let me begin by saying that I read this book after seeing the movie that was released in 2009. My reasons to read were strictly because I LOVE Rachel McAdams. And of course, like 99% of other book-to-movies, the book certainly surpassed the movie by a long shot. The movie left a lot of unexplained situations in my eyes. Knowing what we know about book-to-movies...I needed clarification. I started off very hesitant. This being my first book after my Outlander series - I knew another time travel story wouldn't compare. However, these books were completely different - in a million ways. The main difference was that the ongoing problem throughout the book IS time travel, unlike in Outlander, where the time travel is important, but it's certainly not an on-going issue. The love in Time Traveler's Wife seemed to me to be more "understood" than developed. You have to accept that when Clare meets Henry (again), she loves him and knows they will marry. But Henry is meeting her for the first time. I was a little thrown off by the mood that is given throughout their dating time. Their love story has such a complexity that I had a lot of trouble trying to envision how a "REAL" person could ever really deal with such a situation. The author does a remarkable job of helping it make sense. If there was one occurrence that explains the pain of the characters and changes the entire mood of the story it's the miscarriages Clare endures, at times alone.

The author's unique style of writing allows us to have glimpses into the past and present, explaining wondrous amounts information for both characters without extensive (overwritten) descriptive paragraphs. This book is absolutely a recommended read. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I ended up missing this book (or the characters) when I was done with it. I hope you enjoy it as well - let me know! You're up :)