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I had been bought a signed, hardback copy of this by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bateleur's parents for Christmas and these last few days (between doomed Vampire: Bloodlines loading and patching attempts) I have been reading it.
It's a clever idea which the author seems to have gone to a lot of effort (and detail) to portray convincingly. I was a little dubious about some of the reasoning (I regarded the DNA stuff as artistic license, but found it hard to consider the survival of the time-travelling embryos in the same way) but all the non-science side seemed solid. I liked Clare and I liked Henry, but I also thought that the minor characters were pretty believable as well. I guess my favourite of those was Alicia, or possibly Ben.
Did Henry's time travelling make Clare his soul mate - because he had been there - or would they have always been a couple? I found the book raised a great many questions like that. Another good example is how their joint "secret" (for want of a better word) seemed to set them apart from everyone else; was that why they were both in demand? Also I would have liked them to explore the issue of trying to break the past a bit more; but perhaps the point is that they did not.
I spent some time wondering how she had written the book. I write from start to finish and I understand that is the most common approach, but The Time Traveller's Wife is a book that lends itself to being written in other ways (eg. all the events by either Clare's age or Henry's). It's mostly written as Henry grows older, but not entirely and I think her ordering really works well.
I was rather sad about the lack of plot. The book is really all about Henry's condition and how it affects him and the people around him. It is interesting enough to be a story in its own right but... I kept wishing that there was something else going on in the background. Things like Ingrid and Gomez are not really big enough to count. I also found the last but one event that occurred to Henry exceptionally unpleasant and it seemed rather set-up in advance.
However, all in all, an excellent book which I'd recommend.
One last note: I've got a feeling that someone on my Flist (triskellian?) has also read this book and reviewed it on LJ. If this is the case (I've looked but can't find it), can someone point me to the review? I'd be interested in comparing. Thanks.
bateleur's parents for Christmas and these last few days (between doomed Vampire: Bloodlines loading and patching attempts) I have been reading it.It's a clever idea which the author seems to have gone to a lot of effort (and detail) to portray convincingly. I was a little dubious about some of the reasoning (I regarded the DNA stuff as artistic license, but found it hard to consider the survival of the time-travelling embryos in the same way) but all the non-science side seemed solid. I liked Clare and I liked Henry, but I also thought that the minor characters were pretty believable as well. I guess my favourite of those was Alicia, or possibly Ben.
Did Henry's time travelling make Clare his soul mate - because he had been there - or would they have always been a couple? I found the book raised a great many questions like that. Another good example is how their joint "secret" (for want of a better word) seemed to set them apart from everyone else; was that why they were both in demand? Also I would have liked them to explore the issue of trying to break the past a bit more; but perhaps the point is that they did not.
I spent some time wondering how she had written the book. I write from start to finish and I understand that is the most common approach, but The Time Traveller's Wife is a book that lends itself to being written in other ways (eg. all the events by either Clare's age or Henry's). It's mostly written as Henry grows older, but not entirely and I think her ordering really works well.
I was rather sad about the lack of plot. The book is really all about Henry's condition and how it affects him and the people around him. It is interesting enough to be a story in its own right but... I kept wishing that there was something else going on in the background. Things like Ingrid and Gomez are not really big enough to count. I also found the last but one event that occurred to Henry exceptionally unpleasant and it seemed rather set-up in advance.
However, all in all, an excellent book which I'd recommend.
One last note: I've got a feeling that someone on my Flist (
triskellian?) has also read this book and reviewed it on LJ. If this is the case (I've looked but can't find it), can someone point me to the review? I'd be interested in comparing. Thanks.
