The Time Traveler's Wife

Since entering the precariously unstable world of freelance writing, I've had some time on my hands. I've learned that keeping baked goods in the house is an extremely bad idea. Wearing sweatpants, also very bad. And after spending several days sitting in a chair designed purely for utilitarian purposes, I've decided to perform an experiment to determine the correlation between comfort and productivity. To that end, I am sitting on the sofa today. With my mac on my lap, and my coffee, notepad, pen and phone all at arms reach - I am ready to be productive. Having performed my morning rituals of email and facebook correspondence and ebay tracking, I began thinking about my book club meeting this Friday and thought I'd try my hand at a review. Really, I can fit this into my schedule...

Debut novelist Audrey Niffenegger effortlessly guides us through her brilliantly designed labyrinth in The Time Traveler's Wife, a unique love story between Henry and Clare, whose lives and love are simultaneously plagued by and blessed with a science fiction element. Henry, who suffers from a genetic disorder which causes him to spontaneously time travel, and Clare, who is forced to endure time linearly, take turns shouldering the hardship of this chrono-displacement condition, each harboring their own secrets and questions.

The complexity of Henry and Clare's situation assumes inherent storytelling difficulties, but Niffenegger masterfully unfolds their story with continuous momentum and intrigue. With their ages as benchmarks, we move back and forth in time, learning pieces of their histories, catching glimpses of their futures. Slowly the map of their lives is uncovered.

As Henry and Clare move through their lives together they suffer exceptional challenges and heartfelt tragedies, which are written with such honest emotion that we can't help but cry with them. With steamy love scenes that will leave you blushing and beautiful, flawed characters who you'll lie awake worrying about, this book will beg you to put the kids to bed early.

Whalah! This wasn't on my To Do list, but I'll add it now so I can check it off. Sofa:: 1 Chair:: 0