What readers think of The Time Traveler's Wife, plus links to write your own review.

I am a book junkie. I work in a library, and at a bookstore on weekends, for the love of books. At this year's BEA in June, someone at the MacAdam/Cage booth pressed this book into my hands as I was walking through the exhibition hall. Later, in my hotel, I opened it, because the title implied a SF theme. Then I sat in a chair through the night. I don't think I moved; I just read.
The book mesmerized me. When I got home, I called someone whose opinion I trust, "You have to read this book. I have to know if it's just me, or if this is terrific."
It is terrific. The writing describes loneliness and fear, love and joy, pain and sorrow lucidly, beautifully, compellingly.
Two weeks later, I had to read it again. I missed Henry, and Clare.
My friend argued with me about something Henry had done. It matters, in our lives, because we care, and care deeply, for these people.
I want a book about Alba. I want a book about how differently Clare and Alba cope with their loss than Henry and his father coped with theirs.
I couldn't wait for the publication date. Since the book was published, I've probably hand-sold fifty copies. I'll sell more.
This Niffenegger can write.

I am on the last 50 pages of this book, and I don't want it to end. The relationship of Clare and Henry has been breathtaking, truly. The writing is eloquent and paints pictures that are vivid and touching. What a find!

Don't let the length of this book intimidate you! It's a wonderful read. You will find yourself thinking about the characters long after you put the book down, and I was extremely sad when I finished it. Even though this book jumps all over time, it is easy to keep track of what is happening in the character's lives. The love story is amazing without being sappy. Clare (especially Clare!) and Henry are true examples of selfless and timeless (excuse the poor pun) love.

I finished this very satisfying "read" this evening. The author handled the potentially confusing shifts in time and point of view with technical mastery, especially given the speed and frequency with which they occurred. I found myself double checking that the author was a woman about midway through the book because it occurred to me that Henry's character was drawn with much greater dimension and precision than was Clare's; Gomez' more strongly defined than Charisse's. Through the first two-thirds of the book, Henry's time traveling is entertaining, even charming, and an integral part of the love story between Henry and Clare. As the book's climax approaches, the author's deft foreshadowing injects a darker note and the essential tragedy of the story become more apparent. I found the ending poignant and inevitable. I will watch for other books by this very promising author.

I loved the book, but the ending was empty.

High concept, uneven execution. cardboard characters, too much surface detail about what music they listen to and what they eat, nothing about the events of the eras they live through. Henry the time traveler is not interesting enough for all the attention. He learns nothing from going back and forth and neither do we. Other authors have done much better with the potentially fascinatining time travel concept: Jack Finney in Time and Again, Kurt Vonnegutt in Slaugherhouse Five, and the screenplays of Back to the Future, and Groundhog Day, for examples. Basically this book is a soppy piece of chicklit with a twist that does not really redeem its banality.

The only thing remotely interesting about this book was the time travel concept. However, the tv show, Journey Man did a much better job tackling the concept than the book. This book goes on and on with over-the-top, unnecessary descriptions of paper and art, seemingly just for the sake of displaying the author's knowledge of the subject. Unfortunately, it did not add anything whatsoever to the story, but was a struggle to get through. Furthermore, Henry and Clare's "love story" was so robotic and hollow in feel. You can't just write about how much people love each other, not back it up with anything other than the "suspense" of waiting to see the other person and then sell it as a real love story. Not to mention that the sexual interactions were very bluntly written, not in a way that a couple in love would describe things. Not worth the time to read, now if only I could go back in time and choose not to read it...

I found The Time Traveler's Wife, although quite original in concept, to be one of the more boring, contrived, and melodramatic love stories I have read to date. I was bothered by many aspects of this novel---the convenience and ease of their wealth, Clare's excessively blue-blood upbringing (the setting of her childhood home could just as easily have been a southern antebellum plantation, replete with slaves), each character's entry read like a middle school journal, and the dating of each entry, along with giving the various ages of the two lovers at the time, got more and more tedious and confusing as the novel progressed. I do not see what all the fuss is about. I only hope that I can soon forget the names Henry and Clare.