Anybody here read this yet?
I was really impressed with this book. Romantic and well written.
I liked it a great deal: couldn’t sleep the night after I read it because I kept thinking about it. It thrills me that this was her first novel. I love the way she takes one slightly wacky premise and the rest of the novel is a serious study of the logical effect of that premise on real people. That said:
I did NOT like the end. When Henry is preparing for death, he says that he thought Clare would be okay without him, but then he says something about how her knew she wouldn’t be, really, because (presumably) of something he’s already seen: coupled with her last scene where she talks about her day-to-day routine of waiitng for him, this seems to suggest that she spends that 40 years miserable and bereift without him. This that bothers me: it suggests that nothing was learned from Henry’s father’s crushing devestation after Henry’s own mother’s death–it suggests that not only is time itself a closed circle, but that people are too, and that they can’t really learn anything or do anything against their fate; Henry’s father’s grief was the dominating factor in henry’s chilhood, and it depresses me to think that Clare’s grief followed that same path and dominated Alba’s life. I found this whole idea to be at odds with the rest of the book, which seemed much more hopeful, much more about humanity’s ability to adapt and even to flourish in really weird circumstances.
I’ve heard good things. It’s on my wish list.
Just sayin’so I can watch the comments in the thread. Thanks!
I thought it surprisingly contradictory. Not only the thing that bothered you Manda JO, but some of the other things as well. He has problems visiting his future but is able to do certain things in the future:
Like visiting Alba, looking up his death certificate, finding winning lottery numbers. Also, if Clare had such a hard time carrying Alba, how did Henry manage to get born - as he would have had time travel genes in utero as well
But, although it wasn’t the tightest book, it was still wonderful. Just one of those books you don’t want to think about “how” too much.
I enjoyed it a lot. But I have no other comments at this time.
Ok, I borrowed this from my mom a few months ago, and just haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. I got caught up in a few other books and pretty much forgot that I had it. It’s next on the reading list!
I like the book very much, but one thing that bothered me was how Claire seemed so perfect. She was beautiful, artistic, lovely red hair, patient, blahblahblah. After looking at the author photo, I couldn’t help but think that the author was projecting onto Claire a bit (or a lot).
Since we only really see Claire from Henry’s viewpoint, I think she’s perfect because H thinks she’s perfect.
I loved it.
I haven’t read it yet because my library doesn’t have it. And they rejected my “buy this book” suggestion. 
I’ll give it a shot when it comes out in a paperback edition. It sounds like an interesting story.
It’s currently out in Trade paperback! I just bought a copy 
I LOVED this book. I liked it so much I got my mom a copy too.
I liked it quite a bit – sent my copy to my college bf, with whom I’ve been swapping cool books for 30 years or so.
I really enjoyed it and found it quite sad in parts.
The bit I couldn’’ figure out was how he managed to be time-travelling twice at the same time when he was shot, and also we never found out why his father and brother in law had already met him. I just didn’t think we had that whole scenario explained properly.
I’d love to see a sequel.
It’s been a while since I have read the book, but I think a possible explanation for [spoiler]Henry not time traveling in the womb and Claire’s children doing so was the progression and mutation of the time traveling “condition” (I’ve forgotten the book’s scientific explanation for it) from his generation to the next. It seemed to affect Alba much differently than Henry. The fact that she could control it sometimes made me wonder though how many times Alba actually visited Henry and he was oblivious to her presence besides the one scene detailed in the book.
This just occurred to me, but was she perhaps described in any other scenes before we learn about her, and I just didn’t give her any thought? I don’t have the book with me to check.[/spoiler]
I enjoyed the book even though I thought it did have its (some already mentioned) flaws, but I really detested Claire as a character. I can’t exactly pinpoint what about her exactly that rubbed me the wrong way, but I remember commenting to my mother after she had read it that I wished it had merely been The Time Traveler without the wife tacked on.
I found Clare far from perfect. Seemed to me she was sort of the ultimate victim. Fated to spend her life waiting for this guy. Didn’t have much direction of her own. Doormat for her family. Doormat for her husband. Doormat for Gomez. Beat up by her first date.
Beautiful and talented and rich and intellegent - yep. But fated to not control her own life despite it.
Her desire to have a child really bugged me. 'Course, I’m an adoptive mom and find the whole “need to have my and my spouse’s genes even if it kills me” to be very offensive.