DISCUSSION= SPOILERS!!!

I’m conflicted about this book. On one hand, I loved it… it kind of bugs my other hand. Part of this is my own fault. I was really enjoying the book and wanted to see what other people had to say about it because I was just dying to talk about it (I’ve seen the movie, no real risk of spoilers) and once people pointed out some of the books flaws, I couldn’t stop noticing them.

Starting at the beginning though… the cover. I love! the cover. It’s such a perfect representation of the entire story, it’s really fantastic. It was never really a cover I noticed before, I picked this book up because of the hype (I know, I’m a little behind), but in spite of the cover. Now I get it, and love it. I like covers that mean a little extra to people who have read the book so you can look back on it later on and remember why you loved the book. From a marketing standpoint, maybe not the best plan.

The story and concept were great. Such a cool idea. I also like that his time traveling came from a scientific phenomenon, not a magical one. It just happens… sometimes it sucks, sometimes its great. What made this story so interesting, was looking at the story from those left behind, specifically Clare, the title character. She’s normal, she has to wait for Henry to come back to her. Thankfully she likes being alone, so sometimes it’s okay. As she says (more or less) “sometimes I like being alone, but I always like when he comes back”.

Now, what bugged me. This book is more than a little pretentious. Not the characters, the book (won’t go so far as to say the author, it could just be a mood or setting she was trying to create. While Clare and Henry never seemed to look down on (or even really talk to) those who didn’t like their indie music or frequent art galleries or eat painstakingly described meals… it comes up, ALL the time. Past the point of being over done. Although, to be fair this is what I didn’t notice until it was pointed out… but once I noticed it became impossible to overlook.

I did like it better than the movie, but only slightly. They both had their upsides. The movie didn’t really have a lot of downsides, it was really well done, but there were so many details and characters lost in order to shorten the book down enough. I also thought it was really well cast, but that could be bias from seeing the movie (a few times) before reading the book.

So, what are your thoughts? Will this be the classic it’s predicted to be? How did the movie compare? Share with the class.