Book rec: The Time Traveler's Wife - by Audrey Niffenegger
This is my first book rec for this year: The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. It's not a sci-fi book as many people may be lead to think, but rather an unconventional love story, an emotional rollercoaster that will keep you riveted to the pages until the very end.
The whole story unfolds along young Clare Abshire's life, from childhood to adulthood, and her relationship with Henry DeTamble, the man whom she has known all her life and who eventually becomes her husband. Nothing strange here, if not for the fact that Henry suffers from a genetic disease that makes him 'chrono-displaced', a person who unwillingly travels back and forth in time, meeting his past or future self and the other significant people in his life, interacting with them at various times but unable to change their future:
I met Clare for the first time in October, 1991. She met me for the first time in September, 1977; she was six, I will be thirty-eight. She's known me all her life. In 1991 I'm just getting to know her.
You can read the whole prologue here: http://contemporarylit.about.com/cs/firstchapters/a/ttw.htm
For my Italian friends: although I strongly recommend the original version, the book has been translated into Italian and published by Mondadori:
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_moglie_dell%27uomo_che_viaggiava_nel_tempo
Apparently, a movie is also in the works, and will probably be released later this year: http://imdb.com/title/tt0452694/
Don't know about you, but I was hooked right from the beginning. I devoured the book in a few days, even dreamt about the characters at night, which is unusual for me, unless the story is really compelling.
This is a powerful novel, and all the positive reviews it earned were well deserved. Let's hope the movie lives up to expectations (although this rarely happens, as I'm often really disappointed by adaptations). *crosses fingers*
The whole story unfolds along young Clare Abshire's life, from childhood to adulthood, and her relationship with Henry DeTamble, the man whom she has known all her life and who eventually becomes her husband. Nothing strange here, if not for the fact that Henry suffers from a genetic disease that makes him 'chrono-displaced', a person who unwillingly travels back and forth in time, meeting his past or future self and the other significant people in his life, interacting with them at various times but unable to change their future:
I met Clare for the first time in October, 1991. She met me for the first time in September, 1977; she was six, I will be thirty-eight. She's known me all her life. In 1991 I'm just getting to know her.
You can read the whole prologue here: http://contemporarylit.about.com/cs/firstchapters/a/ttw.htm
For my Italian friends: although I strongly recommend the original version, the book has been translated into Italian and published by Mondadori:
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_moglie_dell%27uomo_che_viaggiava_nel_tempo
Apparently, a movie is also in the works, and will probably be released later this year: http://imdb.com/title/tt0452694/
Don't know about you, but I was hooked right from the beginning. I devoured the book in a few days, even dreamt about the characters at night, which is unusual for me, unless the story is really compelling.
This is a powerful novel, and all the positive reviews it earned were well deserved. Let's hope the movie lives up to expectations (although this rarely happens, as I'm often really disappointed by adaptations). *crosses fingers*