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.

[mollyringle]

Hehe. Happy to help. That was a *brief* scene, but still. More Stephen-King-ish than I was anticipating. "Is this a comedy or a tragedy?"--really, reading group guide? I'm having a hard time imagining a comedy that contains such a scene.

[naill_renfro]

You said it before I could... Wow. Now I know one book I'm never, ever going to read.

[mollyringle]

Oh good; glad I could help someone else dodge a bullet--especially someone prone to picking up books with a sci-fi angle. It kind of felt like she couldn't decide whether to write sci-fi, romance, or depressing acclaimed literary, so went with all three but mostly the latter. Yay.