Time Changes Everything

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger is a compelling novel about love, loss, and the importance of time. The story follows Henry DeTamble, a time traveler, through his life. A life that is full of the unknown because Henry never knows when he will time travel, where he will go, or when he will return. If that wasn’t complicated enough he then meets a girl, Clare Abshire, who he wishes to never leave. The driving force in the story is their love which for Clare began when she was only six years old and him when he was 28; keeping in mind that in present time they are only eight years apart. However after Clare became such an important part of his life he began to travel back in time to her when she was just a child. Henry’s life is clearly complex and his time traveling poses a lot of issues to himself and those around him. This story is one of the best I have read in a long time, I couldn’t put it down. It keeps you waiting and wondering throughout the whole thing in a way similar to that of Clare.


The movie version released back in 2009 is very good as well. Eric Bana as Henry and Rachel McAdams as Clare do a great job of bringing these characters to life, their acting did not lack a drop of passion. Due to the lack of time though it could not encompass all the magic that novel did. Basically all the storylines that were outside of the main love story and even some from the love story were cut from the film. There were fragments throughout the film that readers would have caught and been like “oh that is from this storyline…” but the movie doesn’t do more than allude to them and there are some parts that don’t even get that. A few of them I would have liked to keep just because I thought they were important to the power behind the story. The movie really is just a small fragment of the book and there are minor details they change in the parts that they use that aren’t too extreme so they don’t really bother me. My main issue was the cut of several important parts of Henry’s life that in the book really help to form him into the man he eventually becomes and his relationship with his wife into as strong as it is. I highly recommend the book especially to read before to movie, it will provide more of a connection to the characters so even though there is a lot cut out of the film you will still know everything that they have been through and really feel for them.

Here is a trailer for the film version:



Enjoy!!

(I take no credit for the videos or photos used in this post)