Friday, December 31, 2004

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

I always give fiction published by MacAdam-Cage a chance, and this is a clever book. It made for an excellent airplane read (am I the only person who worries about choosing books to read on airplanes that don't make me look common --c'mon you know what I mean-- but also don't make me look pompous?). The hook--husband can't help but time travel--naked--at unexpected moments--puts tension into every scene. You never know when he's going to disappear or show up and how he's going to cope with not having any clothes, so there is a physical threat at even the most ordinary moments. I flew through this book wondering what would happen, and yet it's in many ways a conventional romance. The events are basically dates, wedding, difficulty getting pregnant--the author has just found a way to make them fresh. The thing is I read this book only a week ago and I remember almost nothing from it. Essentially it's an engagingly-written, plot-driven read. If Niffenegger had paid a little more attention to character-development, I think it would have been the kind of book I want to reread every few years; as it is, I probably won't keep my copy for long. Good book to learn about tension from, though.

2 comments:

Voix said...

Thanks for the reviews! Always nice to have more recommendations of what to read next. Please keep it up.

Anonymous said...

it seems like i read somewhere that brad pitt will play the husband in the movie version . . . i suppose that will take care of character development issues!