Book review: The Time Traveler's Wife is freaking depressing.

[mollyringle]

Just finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife. My sum-up would be "freaking depressing." It wasn't freaking depressing in the sense that Steinbeck or a lot of Thomas Hardy are freaking depressing, but considering I was expecting a playful part-sci-fi, part-romance romp, it turned out rather freaking depressing

Comments

[avari_maethor]

I gave The Time Traveler's Wife 2/5 stars when I read it a couple of years ago. I was not impressed. The scene with the miscarriage in the kitchen... that grossed me out more than any graphic detail about maggots in the forensic anthropology books I read ever have.

My review consisted of...

Why does a book that is 536 pages have to have 300 of boring pages at the beginning? I was bored out of my mind while reading the beginning of this book, but everyone went on and on about it so there had to be something right?

Wrong.

There is to much detail. It just goes on and on.

Given there were funny parts and that is why this just two stars from me but overall it was depressing, sad and not romantic... in fact many of the scenes with Henry and Clare were down right creepy.

In all honesty... just say no.

[mollyringle]

I vacillated between 2 and 3 stars--I marked it 3 on Goodreads, but 2.5 would be more accurate. Yeah, I know so many people, all with good taste and great senses of humor, who loved this book, so I expected something...I don't know, fun? Less clinical and plodding?

It was the miscarriage in the bed, where she's got blood all over, including in her hair, and the dead fetus/embryo in her hand, that really disturbed me. Or maybe that did take place on the kitchen floor, and I misread it. Was trying not to look too closely at the page. How many traumatizing miscarriages and amputations does one book need, anyway?

[avari_maethor]

Yeah, it really needed some balance.

[teenybuffalo]

It was the miscarriage in the bed, where she's got blood all over, including in her hair, and the dead fetus/embryo in her hand, that really disturbed me.

god almighty in the heavens full of thunderbolts.

Thank you for warning me off this book forever. Not that you aimed to do so, but I might have bumbled into trying to read this book, and now I know I never want to, ever.

[kirstenfleur]

I have that book. My husband gave it to me as a "cheer up" present, after our baby died in the womb 2 years ago. He was going by the reviews, he hadn't actually read it himself.

It didn't cheer me up.

I didn't much like the rest of it either. Also, "comedy"? Never in a million years!

[mollyringle]

Oh Kirsten, what an awful coincidence! I can hardly think of a more unfortunate book to pick up at that time. I haven't even *had* a miscarriage, and it was still near-unbearable to read about, so I can't fathom how couples who have had them could ever stand to read such a thing. I assume some find it cathartic, but I'd want to avoid the subject wherever possible, thank you. But really, it could be a comedy, right?... um, hah, no.