A review by davidbythebay
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

emotional slow-paced
  • 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

1.0

WOW! I just can't believe that this was ever considered a good book. There is a book for everyone and everyone for a book; however, this was just a mess. I'm going to just start listing my issues with this, in no particular order:

1) Okay, I lied. My biggest, number one, issue was grooming. The entire story is about Henry periodically stopping into Clare's life and telling her how she's going to make a good wife for him some day. This is a 20-40 year old man (depending on which time jump he is on) telling a girl ages 6-18 that she will be his wife one day. I don't mind age differences in romantic relationships, but I do mind grooming and underaged relations. It is IMPORTANT to note that Henry and Clare never have sex until she is 18 and he's 42 (on her 18th birthday).

2) Henry is the most manipulative, authoritative, controlling man throughout this! I get that he has to be a quick thinking, fast talking con man to get away with time travel shenanigans with the public at large, but with his family and the woman he loves he is so controlling of everything. He's such an egotistical prick at times I really just wanted him to time jump into a brick wall.  He gets so jealously upset when she dates someone, or just goes on a simple date, and yet he's out screwing women and having a real dodgy reputation. He actually tries to say that he's running through women and liquor to "pass the time" as he waits for Clare. 

3) On a simple plot note: the time jumps can be so confusing to understand where we are, what age people are, and what the whole situation is. Like, there were several times I thought there was some under-aged hanky panky going on, but there wasn't because they were in their 20s or something.  

4) The POV jumps around so much without any clear definition of who is speaking it just gets jumbled.

5) There are periodic tangents, especially early on, into such philosophical and sometime religious discussions that are just so boring and elitist feeling. Like they are the annoying hipsters who speak of "Marx's Communistic systems" instead of simply "communism". 

6) Okay, back to some specifics... Back in Clare's past she is assaulted by a boy she went on a date with. Henry shows up and she (aged like 15 I think) shows the older Henry her bruised breasts and Henry wants to make this kid pay. Now, assault is absolutely intolerable and should be punished; however, Henry and the youthful Clare are pressing an unloaded gun into this kid's face, stripping him naked, and tying him up to leave him in the woods. It's just a bit much, especially given the Bonnie and Clyde way Henry and Clare go about it. It just feels like they are about to knock the kid out and have sex on his body. 

7) Henry kisses a child. It may or may not be a sexual kiss, but it is described in an almost sexual way. Also, Henry is constantly on the brink of not being able to control himself around the prepubescent and teenage Clare. Get. Your. Hands. Off. The. Child. Henry! 

8) Every now and then, randomly, there is a simple sentence that is just randomly inserted with an overly wrought word. It comes across like a high school spelling lesson where the kid has to make a sentence with one of the vocabulary words. "Just as they were drinking their milk, the car horn blared across the atramentous night."

9) There is a LOT of problematic language and stuff in here. A beehive hairdo is described as the kind only a Black woman can wear. Clare's family is rich with Black servants. Mrs. Kim is a racist stereotype that's even described as "flat-faced Korean woman".  Much of the dialogue from people of color is stereotypically tinged, to say the least. There is a lot of body shaming, fatphobia, homophobia, racism, misogyny (by the ton!), and sexism. 

10) One of these homophobic moments is when Henry is telling us how he was like 15 and his 15 year old self from 4 months in the future is in his bedroom so they start to get naked and fool around because "anyone would when they are a teenaged boy all horny and in their room with themself, but that doesn't mean he's gay! No he's not gay! Ugh." I paraphrase, but that's basically how it goes. 

11) I got the ick when Henry and Clare discuss in their 20s/30s that they have too much sex and how sore she is down there. So he then tells her to tell him "not tonight" when she wants a break and how he will "respect" that but how she should know that he's absolutely dying, as a man would, to have sex with her and can barely control himself and will continue to respect her decision to not have sex until he dies of lack of nookie. Ick!  He says shit like this a lot, in fact. He is almost constantly talking about how much he wants to jump the teenaged Clare because she's coming into her breasts and how he imagines the fully grown version he knows. 

12) At one point, I kid you not, Clare tells Henry that she wanted him to have sex with her when she was underage, so it wouldn't have been rape because she wanted it. NO! NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT!

13) The phrase "ripen like a flesh melon" should NEVER be used to describe a pregnant woman or a pregnancy. 

14) Clare seems to say that adoption is pretend and that it means less than a biological child. That's just bullshit and completely disturbed thinking. 

15) Clare's 18th birthday she sets up a lovely picnic with wine even so that when the 42 year old Henry travels in time to her she can have sex with him as she is now of the legal age of consent. At this time, yes it is legal but after all this "I can't control myself around her" and the grooming, it just feels wrong. What's also wrong is when Henry says he can't drink because of doctor's orders, but he tells the 18 year old to drink the wine (she is under 21, the legal age for alcohol in the US) and when she drinks it he comments about how "obedient" she is. 

16) Henry is the epitome of douchey frat bro. He is constantly referencing how great he is at cunnilingus or sex. How he would definitely medal in the Olympics of oral. How he is amazing at it! The only one who brags more that Henry is Supreme Court Justice Boomer. 

17) Clare actually slept with someone else between her passionate 18th birthday and first officially meeting Henry. She holds onto the secret for so long and is in so need of being punished for doing this heinous act that she practically begs Henry for forgiveness, but is perfectly fine with Henry's half-assed "Yeah I was schtooping a few women between your 18th birthday and when we first met because I was "waiting for you". 

18) They just come across as an insufferable hipster pair of asshats. Like going on with quoting authors and poets in the original French or German, talking about reading Proust in a name drop, name dropping operas and books and music, and commenting on how Wagner's operas are a lesser opera that they don't care for but they have season tickets to the opera. 

Just generally, how Clare is pining for Henry and waits for him like some pathetic waif of an individual while Henry can go and have this life and, yes, die young by what I can only imagine was not an accident but a concerted effort to save Clare by her family via killing the mysterious creep who keeps popping up in the woods by their house and grooming their child, whom she eventually marries anyway and then sits alone for the next 40+ years of her life after he dies, after the first 40-or-so years of her waiting to finally officially meet him and have sex with him. I just can't. 

I wanted to read this in anticipation for Theo James (such a fine man!) and the new series coming out, but woah! I don't think even Theo James' sweet...assets and eyes can save this trainwreck of a plot.
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