Reviews: “The Time Traveler’s Wife” (and Four More)

I recently read my 36th book of the year therefore meeting my annual goal. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’ll stop reading any more books until 2009.

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffeneger. I can’t even remember when I first picked this book up. But, at long last, I finally finished it. It’s a nice love story, the concept was interesting, and the writing was good but for some reason, I just couldn’t get into it. Some parts just seemed to drag so instead of reading on, I’d start on a new book. And I must have read at least a dozen books in between the first and last pages.

Here are more reviews of some of the books I read while reading “The Time Traveler’s Wife”.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. I had been wanting to read this from all the praises I've been hearing about it since it's first publication. The size was intimidating at first but once I got started, I had a hard time trying to put it down. The story was cleverly paced, unfolding in a way which you get to savor what you've just read and anticipate for the next situation. It read like a movie playing in my head. The 10 years she spent writing this wonderful novel with care and dedication to detail was evident and admirable. One of the best books I've read.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. It was because of how much I enjoyed his first novel "The Kite Runner" did he become a writer I decided to keep an eye out for. His second attempt was not as good as his first and I found it too depressing at times but the ending redeemed itself by giving the characters a hopeful future.

I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle. I was in the mood for a laugh-out-loud story and someone recommended this very funny novel about recent high school graduates. It was as clever and cliché as the movies of the same subject, complete with the standard stock characters, soundtrack and crawl.

The Society of S by Susan Hubbard. I've been hearing some good things about this for quite awhile but it was only with the recent release of its sequel did I finally pick it up. There were many parallels to Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian" which is a good thing. While not as layered or masterfully written, this book was still interesting and I could hardly put the book down. I will definitely check out the next book "The Year of Disappearances".