Reading time: 4 -- 7 minutes

Saturday, September 19

I just finished one of the most moving, wonderful love stories I have ever read. I fought tears off and on through out the book. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffennegger is an extraordinary book that I recommend most highly. *warning* Spoilers to follow

Okay, if you’ve come this far and not read the book or seen the movie, I am likely to ruin some of the best and some of the most horrible surprises of this book. It will still be worth a read I am sure, just wanna be clear on the spoilers part.

This book is the story of a love that exists across time. A woman who waits for her love to return from his time travels with grace and dignity. Who accepts this man and loves him as he is, even with all the difficulties and problems his genetic differences cause them.

They meet when she is 8, but it is not the first time he has met her. His time travel is catch as catch can. He cannot control it, he just disappears at odd times. He helps her with homework over the years. He is her first lover on her 18th birthday. After which they don’t see each other for two years.

When they meet two years later, he has yet to meet her in his travels. They build a wonderful, if sometimes trying, life together. After many miscarriages, they have a beautiful daughter. They live through the various ups and downs life can throw at you, though money is never an issue for them. At one point in the story, Clare laments the size of her art studio. Henry then goes and buys the winning lottery ticket. He could have done something like this many many years ago, but felt it to be wrong to do so with foreknowledge. He loves Claire so much, he decides to break his stand on this so that he can purchase her a home with an art studio that is bigger. Much much bigger, as it turns out.

They only have a precious few years together after the meet in the present (as in, he’s not traveling through time). About fifteen years. The child never lacks for a father though. His past self travels forward to be with her, much like he traveled backwards to be with Claire.

He knew when he would die since on one of his trips to the future his daughter tells him how old she was when he passed. He also looks up his own obituary, we find out later. He leaves behind a tear jerking good bye letter for Claire and videos to help his time traveling daughter to cope with the things she will need to do in order to survive during her travels. He only visits Claire one time after he passes, yet she knows of him still existing in moments of time after his death from the stories her daughter tells of spending time with him.

There is so much more to this story than I can tell here. So much about each of their families, the friends, ex-lovers, colleagues… This story is moving in ways I cannot even put words to right now. Maybe it is a bit of my own situation, but that is not by any means the biggest part of it.

I can hardly wait to see the movie now. Even if I cannot get to it before it goes out of the theaters I will buy the DVD. I am trying to fathom how they got enough of the story into the movie to keep it true to the book. I am guessing they start with her meeting him in the present tense at 20 years of age, then run through the rest in a chronological order of there present tense. I wonder how many of his travels will be combined somehow, because I don’t believe they can put all of the small details that matter in without doing just that.

If you have not read the book, I strongly recommend it. Even if you’ve seen the move…get the book. We all know there is no way any movie can full encompass all the small and endearing details of a novel.

If you enjoyed this post, sign up for my free e-book and exclusive content!

Welcome back! So good to see you again. If you've not subscribed to my RSS feed or by Email, I hope you take a minute to do so. Thanks for coming back. Looking forward to seeing you again soon!