The Time Traveler's Wife

[kaliki_kila]

I know it has been out for several years now, but I just came across it.

Wow... just... wow. This book was so hauntingly sad... and still breathtakingly beautiful. I didn't want it to end, but I just couldn't put the book down.

I just saw that a movie is currently in the works. I really hope they can do the book justice because it was simply amazing. Please tell me I am not the only one that was so moved?

[To-Fu]

Loved it!

I first got it because it deals with time travel (I'm not one for love stories), but I really got into it.

I'm very curious what the movie will be like.

[*Jade*]

I loved it too, I couldn't put it down! I can't imagine a movie though

[LaLaLaLa]

I read it a few months ago and absolutely adored it. I still find it hard to wrap my mind around it, and I'd definitely argue the label of "love story." Is it really love if the characters didn't have a choice about it? There are some fascinating concepts, and I like that it breaks the rule about being able to encounter another version of yourself that is pretty much a staple of other time-travel books I've read.

[ColoradoMama]

I'm not sure I'd put it in the love story category either. It was an interesting book. I really hated it for the first half. I only kept reading it because a friend told me that she, too, hated the first half, but keep reading! So, I did. I'm glad I did. I was hooked by the end. It was a challenging read for a while, but I would definitely read something else by that author. I think it would be very hard to make a movie out of. I'll have to go see it just to see how they do it!

[elspethshimon]

How is this book not a love story?

I thought it was very well done. I will not be seeing the movie. I'm not opposed to adapting books into movies, but I don't think I will bother with this one.

Since when does love have to involve choice? I didn't chose to fall in love with my partner. I just did. Henry and Claire are just like any two individuals who fall in love. They hung out, got to know each other, and fell in love. Period.

That their love didn't follow a conventional linear trajectory doesn't make it any less of a "love story" (which is little more than a story about love).

Now, the novel might challenge conventional literary love stories, but that is a different issue all together.

[Wolfmeis]

I thought it was fantastic. "Haunting" is a perfect word to describe it.

[ananas]

It's one of the absolute books I've ever read, and I can read it over and over again. It's just beautiful and amazing.

[tsfairy]

Originally Posted by Wolfmeis

I thought it was fantastic. "Haunting" is a perfect word to describe it.

Ditto. I read it over a year ago and still think about it often.

[socialworkmamma]

DD is about to turn 7 and I read it for the first time around her 3rd birthday. I have always found myself thinking about the book around her birthday and I've enjoyed re-reading it and getting something different each time. I agree "haunting" is a good description. I think it could possibly be made into a great miniseries with the right actors, but how they could squeeze it into a movie without losing lots, I don't know.

[Traci mom23boys]

I read it several years ago and loved it! I had swollen eyelids for days after finishing It is a keeper!

Blessings,

[LaLaLaLa]

Love Story Label and Spoilers

Originally Posted by elspethshimon

How is this book not a love story?

Spoiler Alert!















I would argue about the love story label because in a normal love story, you have two people who come together with no expectations of each other. They fall in love based on a clean slate, based on getting to know the person each one is.

Because the time line is all messed up in this story, the adult Henry met Claire when she was six years old, when he already knew they would end up married. He sees her for her entire childhood and relates to her in a very specific way, almost grooming her to become the woman who he knows he loves as his wife. He opens her eyes to things he knows she will enjoy and is able to be a hero to her as a child. Because he knows her adult self so intimately, he is able to be exactly the person her young self would adore. Because she loves him as an adult, she really has no choice but to fall in love with him as a child. In fact, she complains a couple of times to him, something to the effect that he is making her weird, by telling her things she likes (like coffee, or certain poetry) before she has a chance to figure that out for herself.

Likewise, when they first start actually dating in real time, Henry has no idea who Claire is, but she has over a decade (two decades?) of knowing who he is and what he is all about, after he gets his life straightened out. Because she knows the potential in him and has seen him as an older man, she is able to similarly shape his future, by nudging him in the right direction and turning him into the person she eventually marries. She grooms him to be her husband, just as he groomed her to be his wife when she was a child.

If Claire and Henry had met in the library that day without any muddled history, would they have dated and fell in love? Doubtful. Even when she knows their future, it's hard for her to stay with him at first, and it takes a talking-to by an older version of himself at the concert to convince her that she can change him and that she needs to stay with him. It's the fact that they know their relationship is inevitable that pushes them down their specific path in life.

I don't think either character was malicious or manipulative. If I were to encounter a child version of my dh, you can bet I would be my most charming and gentle when I interacted with him. It would be a natural reaction to a unique situation. And because I know him so well and know the things he finds delightful, I would easily be able to make the child version of him fall in love with me. But I don't know if I would call it a love story, exactly, or just the natural playing-out of something preordained.

It's very late here and I need to get to bed, but I thought I'd spend a minute explaining what I meant by arguing about the love story label. I hope I made some sense. I truly love the book, largely because it makes me think about issues such as these.

[kaliki_kila]

Originally Posted by LaLaLaLa

Spoiler Alert!















He sees her for her entire childhood and relates to her in a very specific way, almost grooming her to become the woman who he knows he loves as his wife. He opens her eyes to things he knows she will enjoy and is able to be a hero to her as a child. Because he knows her adult self so intimately, he is able to be exactly the person her young self would adore. Because she loves him as an adult, she really has no choice but to fall in love with him as a child. In fact, she complains a couple of times to him, something to the effect that he is making her weird, by telling her things she likes (like coffee, or certain poetry) before she has a chance to figure that out for herself.

(Spoilers as well)

See, this is what I found so mind-boggling about the book. Henry saw his wife for the first time, not as a child, but as a fully-grown woman in the library. Claire saw Henry for the first time when she was a child and he was a man who had been married to her many years. So how can it be that Henry introduced Claire to things he knew she would like as an adult (like coffee) .... really, did the adult Claire truly like coffee or was it because the Henry in the past told her she would eventually love coffee... thus shaping her expectations of herself? So did Henry take a little girl as a blank slate and shape her into his own version of what a perfect woman would be like (to him)? Would Claire really like coffee if Henry had not told her she would in the future? Would she continue to be religious had Henry had not planted that seed of doubt in her mind when she was young? When Henry met Claire for the first time when she was an adult, I think maybe his future self had somehow primed her to become the perfect woman who would be the love of his life.

[To-Fu]

Originally Posted by LaLaLaLa

I would argue about the love story label because in a normal love story, you have two people who come together with no expectations of each other. They fall in love based on a clean slate, based on getting to know the person each one is.

I agree with you that it's not a typical love story, but a love story it remains. It may subvert certain genre-based expectations that the reader has, but that's still the heart of the story. It's certainly not a book about time travel; that would have been a very different story, indeed.

[Think of Winter]

I read this book about 4 years ago, and still think about it. I loved it, too, and agree that it was certainly a love story! The central characters were in love throughout the book, albeit in extraordinary circumstances. The ttc plotline was heartbreaking, and very real.

[Doodlebugsmom]

I just finished reading it a couple nights ago. I really, really enjoyed it. I'll definitely plan on seeing the movie when it comes out!

[gabbyquilts]

Spoilers in here.

i really liked this book and as soon as i was done i thought it was very sweet. after a few days of thinking about it, i thought it was really really sad. Why did he have to tell her that he would see her again when she was old! The more I think about it the more I think of how controlling and manipulative that was. Not only does he get to ask the kid all about her, he pretty much made sure she would put her life on hold waiting. And who knows, maybe she would have anyway, but it kinda sucks.

[elspethshimon]

Originally Posted by gabbyquilts

Spoilers in here.

i really liked this book and as soon as i was done i thought it was very sweet. after a few days of thinking about it, i thought it was really really sad. Why did he have to tell her that he would see her again when she was old! The more I think about it the more I think of how controlling and manipulative that was. Not only does he get to ask the kid all about her, he pretty much made sure she would put her life on hold waiting. And who knows, maybe she would have anyway, but it kinda sucks.

I don't think it was like that at all. She says in the book that he really tried to keep things normal and not tell her things, but that their repeated meetings (157+) made it difficult to prevent their lives from becoming completely entangled in each others. She was in love with him before she knew that she was married to him (of course, she was also about 12 or 13). If you were in love with someone who had to go away, wouldn't you want to know you would see him or her again?

Their lives were not like other people's lives...that's part of the point. I thought the author did a marvelous job of creating characters that had to deal with extraordinary circumstances and who did so with respect for the other person. Of course they weren't perfect, but they wouldn't be human/realistic as characters if they were flawless.

[TypingMarie]

I don't know how to say how much I love this book without taking up a whole page.

When I tell people about it, I say "I've only read it once," because I'm craving a chance to read it again. I sank into it so much when I read it that I think I'll need to clear my schedule for the next read. My son is 15 months old right now, so I think that I'll reread it sometime in 2013.

[allborntogrow]

Time Traveler's Wife was hard for me to get into at first, as I found the writing style to be a little too lyrical and prose-ish for my liking. However, I read most of the best seller and am fascinated with time travel so I stuck with it.

The concept is brilliant and later on, I realized that lyrical nature of the book was a very important part of making sci-fi and romance work together. The concept is still difficult for me to wrap myself around, however, she has illustrated an incredibly complex timeline flawlessly.

I cried my eyes out at two points, one which I will not say for it is a huge spoiler, and at the end. The very last scene in the book reminds me of the end of Ghost (which actually brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it) when Sam turns to Molly and says "It's amazing Molly, the love inside . . . you take it with you."

It is a story of love over time and how true love can survive anything.

Okay now I have to go cry . . .