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Tuesday 16 September 2014

The Time-Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

The Time Traveler's Wife is beautifully written. I enjoyed the writing style, in and of itself, immensely.

What I didn't like was the structure of the book. Vignette followed vignette followed vignette, with little connection between them, and no real feeling of flow.

When I talk about this book to my friends, I say that if an editor had said "you have 30 pages to write this story," it might have been the best short story I'd ever read. It feels like there is about a short story's worth of ideas, stretched out into hundreds of pages.

I'm also not a huge fan of "twist" endings - when they are done well, they work fantastically, but when the fact that there is a twist is advertised in 20-point type across the face of every character, it's more annoying than intriguing. The best twists I don't even see coming. One of the main "twists" in this book I guessed the first time a pregnancy was mentioned.

I was disappointed. I wanted this book to be better. I wanted to love it.

As it was, I was almost continually frustrated as I read it.

1 comment:

  1. This book is truly precious to me. I loved the story, the characters, and the plot. Some may think that this story is a little too "far out" but if the reader gives extra care to the first hundred pages, the last four hundred will fly by. It was a book that I could not put down, even after I had finished it. So moving and so remarkable.
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