Book Summary: Henry, a librarian, has a strange genetic disorder that causes him to unexpectedly time travel. This allows him to meet his future wife, Claire, when she is a child and witness events of his life from many different perspectives and angles, but he is unable to change the past or inevitable future. A film starring Rachel McAdams was made based on this book.
Indulgent Book Talk: This book was extremely engaging and interesting, and even though it sounds very sci-fi, it really isn't. Instead, the time traveling is used mainly as a plot and thematic device to explore how time effects our lives and how much we are a slave to fate and how much our choices matter. It's also very much a romance. I think the title is interesting in that it seems like it is going to be told only from the point of view of Claire, but it actually jumps between Claire and Henry in first-person narratives. The author is also good at keeping all the time frames straight by telling you exactly who is talking and when.
Glorifying Elements: Though they have an imperfect relationship, Claire and Henry are very devoted to each other, even when tragedy strikes their lives. On that level, that's a cool picture of marriage. Also, Claire suffers several miscarriages in the course of the novel, and in her grief makes it clear that she thinks the unborn baby is a child and is worthy of life.
Worldly Elements: Well, let's put it this way. I was really glad when I watched the movie later that it didn't have nearly as much sex as the book. There is a lot of sex described in this novel, and sometimes with crude terms. I was able to get through it because it didn't interrupt the plot and was fairly easy to breeze through, but it was still excessive. Also, Claire and Henry's sexual relationship starts well before marriage, which is of course against God's design for sex. There was an unnecessary amount of bad language, which to me is just lazy writing, and some violence, gore, and drug addition described. There is also a lesbian relationship between two minor characters, but there wasn't really any description about that except just a passing mention.
General Recommendation: Hmm. Well, I thought it was an interesting take on the whole time travel motif and the plot was well-constructed. But I'm not sure it was good enough to slog through some of the graphic mess. I probably won't reread this book.
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