*The Time Traveler's Wife* by Audrey Niffenegger

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I read The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger during my flight to Japan. It's an interesting premise: the main character involuntarily time-travels, causing him many related difficulties; but the main theme of the book is the love story between the time traveler and his wife, Clare. The book kept my interest on the long flight and the love story aspect brought forth all of the emotions that love stories do. However, some things didn't sit right with me.

The book is written in first person, alternating point of view between the two main characters. It's written well, in a literary style, with the characters making many literary references, and probably artistic and musical ones too; they often went over my head. However, certain um... encounters between the two main characters were written in such an indelicate, boring way that they didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the narrative very well at all. It's almost as if the author handed her manuscript to an uncouth high school boy to write those scenes. Would the characters really describe these things in that way?

I obviously didn't expect them to, but i don't know. I would have thought they'd be slightly more creative, but i also feel that my impression of these characters was not as clear as it should have been. And actually, i didn't grow to like them all that much. Some of the minor characters intrigued me. And i related with Henry and Clare in their love and felt for them in their tragedies (except i did find that baby part a bit annoying), but after thinking on the book a while i came away mostly indifferent to them.

And finally, the time travel. It's a curious concept, and i suppose the author handled it fairly well. But all the self-fulfilling circles are hard to live with -- Henry does something because he saw himself doing it -- and reminded me often of a certain Star Wars and Sailor Moon crossover fan-fiction group i happen to be fond of, which for some reason also happens to be fond of time travel.

Would i recommend it? Not particularly. Certainly not to you lollipop girls. But it is interesting, and if you happen to be stuck on a plane to Asia, it's not a bad read.