The Time Traveler’s Wife is one of those books that should have never been written and to be honest, I don’t know how it was published in 2003 with so much problematic messaging.
First of all, when anyone sees time traveling in the title of a book, the first thing you think is that this will be a sci-fi - this could not be further from the truth. The time traveler Henry’s time traveling abilities are never explained.

Instead, this novel is presented as a star-crossed romance between Henry and Clare, where their lives keep intersecting due to Henry’s time traveling. What a waste of an extraordinary ability.

Here’s the thing: Henry loses his clothes when he time travels, and he has zero control over his time traveling ability. Future Henry first meets Clare when she is a literal child, and he recognizes her as the person that he would marry in the future. She has to fetch clothes for him, and he continuously time travels to her to hang out when she is still a child. If that is not grooming behavior, I don’t know what it is.
When Clare grows up and eventually meets Henry, he has not met her in this timeline yet so she has to fill him in. However, younger Henry kind of sucks as a person and partner.

They eventually marry and Clare has at least six (or seven?!) miscarriages because their fetus keeps time-traveling out of the womb. Henry undergoes a vasectomy because Clare is desperate for a baby and insists on trying again…when another Henry time travels to this timeline, he is still intact and Clare seduces him. This read as some form of messed up, time-traveling spousal rape (as present Henry is shocked and not happy when she is once again pregnant since of course he would not give consent to this).

Don’t waste your time with this one. ( )

Incredible love story that helps you gloss over the main part of the book ~ the fact that he time travels!!! It is a really good book! ( )

I knew from the first page that I would love this book. Implausible, and yet it completely works because it is the clear characters and not the fantasy that drives the story. I cannot imagine a more realistic treatment of the effects of time travel. It sent me into a mini-funk over the idea of inevitability. ( )

I really disliked this book as I found it dreary and boring and each chapter seemed to drag on and I found the whole story repetitive, I did not warm to the characters and never had any connection with the story. ( )

I don't like the Time Travel aspect of this. It's def. not SF. I reread it for TT group spring 2021 and am still conflicted about how I feel about it. And apparently I did not write a review. Ah well. It's not like I have anything much to say about a pretentious romance that still manages to charm. ( )