passionatereader78's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This is Henry and Claire's beautifully complicated love story!
Graphic: Abandonment, Sexual content, Pregnancy, Alcoholism, Grief, Infertility, Car accident, and Death of parent
Moderate: Alcohol, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Self harm, Adult/minor relationship, and Toxic relationship
yyes's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Alcohol
lizzye33's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Graphic: Death of parent, Death, and Grief
Moderate: Blood, Toxic relationship, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Police brutality, Gun violence, Emotional abuse, Cursing, Car accident, and Murder
jenn_reads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Graphic: Death of parent, Miscarriage, Adult/minor relationship, Vomit, Sexual content, and Blood
Moderate: Alcohol, Suicide, and Panic attacks/disorders
Decapitation, car accident, limb amputationreading_christine's review against another edition
Graphic: Alcohol, Sexual content, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Sexual assault
Minor: Fatphobia
fishgulper's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Grief, Infertility, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Child death, Alcohol, Gun violence, Medical content, Drug abuse, Death, Drug use, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Death of parent, Miscarriage, Car accident, and Suicide attempt
sari_lavender's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Car accident
Moderate: Drug use, Sexual content, Death of parent, Alcohol, Miscarriage, and Suicide
Minor: Adult/minor relationship
wordsaremything's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I first read this book in high school, sometime around the time I read the Shiver series. In my mind, they are two halves of the same coin, but one of them is a YA novel about a boy who turns into a wolf and therefore is always leaving his girl behind, and the other is an adult novel about a man who can slip through time and tries as hard as he can to get back to the love of his life. Shiver also makes frequent use of quoting Rilke. I wonder if Stiefvater was trying to reference this novel.
I have seen the movie adaptation of this book (with Rachel McAdams, who is perfect for the more dramatic-but-soft tone the movie has) at least a dozen times, and I cry every time at the ending. Even knowing what's going to happen, it gets me Every Single Time.
Recently, HBO decided to do a TV adaptation of this novel, and of course I have been keeping up with it. I was surprised at their casting choice — McAdams is so soft, firm while being delicate, but Rose Leslie's Clare is sharp, and aggressive. Rereading the book, Leslie's Clare is I think more truthful to how Niffenegger wrote her. And thus far (three episodes in), the adaptation has been fairly truthful to the book. Yes, some things have been shifted and changed, but not really, and those that have give it a magical, wonderful quality.
Which I think works because while this is a love story, it's also a tragedy. Niffenegger plays this up, often referencing tragedies or at least sad love stories — Penelope and Odysseus, Orpheus and Eurydice. You would think all of these classic and mythological components mixed in with characters who speak French and German and recite Rilke and are huge into punk and name drop bands every chance they get would feel disingenuous. But I was struck, reading this as an adult, by how impressively realistic the dialogue is. Between adults, between parents and children, between siblings, and especially, especially, especially, between a couple who knows everything about each other, even if the other doesn't know it yet because it's further along in their timeline.
I really didn't end up marking too many passages in this because I was so buoyed by the story and the prose on every page that to begin marking would be to essentially mark every line. This book is 536 pages and went by much too fast, which is astounding considering how much is packed in here. As I mentioned above, this is packed with punk rock, with poetry, French, German, going forward in time, backward in time, friendships, domestic spats, strained parental relationships, cooking — the trappings of a life (minus the time travel), and it all unspools so neatly, so beautifully, that even though you're being jerked around through time, you always feel grounded in the characters.
What a treat to reread this having forgotten most of it. Wouldn't we all like to start again at the beginning of something we know is wonderful?
Graphic: Suicide, Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Drug use
Moderate: Death of parent and Death
Minor: Homophobia
mergwenthur's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
0.5
First of all, the time travelling doesn't make sense to me, it's always confusing for me anyway.
It's understood that Henry first met Clare when he was 28 and they were both adults but for Clare, she's known him since she was 6 and Henry was early 40s.
It was actually quite sad to see that Clare literally spent her whole life surrounded by Henry, waiting for him, loving him, wanting to be with him etc etc.
Atleast Henry was able to live his own life and go down his own routes and paths. Clare was not able to do that.
It made me uncomfortable for Henry groom Clare in that way. He was attracted to her when she was in her early-mid teens. He quite roughly kissed her when she was 15/16 and then slept with her on her 18th birthday.
Not only this but other problematic aspects within the book. The way the writer was 'descriptive' also made me uncomfortable.
What was the need to know the nurse was Black (and it was written in what felt like a passive aggressive way). Or to know 'an Indian doctor called Sue.'
To the author...erm.... the doc said nothing about their ethnicity but you wrote 'Indian' because you wanted to portray them as brown? Surely South Asian would make more sense. This just made your characters look stereotypical.
Also insensitive sentences about rape which added nothing to what the characters were saying. There are much better ways to say those things.
And the antisemitism ?? Yeah that was also not okay.
The film did a lot better in regards to being less problematic and harmful but overall, yeah. This book is not good.
Graphic: Sexual content, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Death of parent, Suicide, Car accident, Medical content, Grief, Miscarriage, Alcohol, Antisemitism, and Cancer
uranaishi's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Graphic: Car accident, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Death, and Death of parent
Moderate: Drug use, Sexual content, Classism, Medical content, Abandonment, Drug abuse, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Blood, Cancer, Cursing, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Gun violence, Infertility, Mental illness, and Torture
Minor: Addiction, Child death, Classism, Self harm, Homophobia, Rape, and Vomit