'The Time Traveler's Wife' by Audrey Niffennegger

 The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffennegger (3.5)

I first read this book in the early 2000’s and was captivated by the plot. The idea of a man who travels back and forth through his own life made for fascinating ‘what if’ scenarios. This time I was a bit less enthralled (older, more critical, or just less novelty the second time around?). I still enjoyed the puzzle – if an older Henry meets a younger Henry in a scene, what portends when we get to the later part of the book? I also found the love story touching, if not totally believable. Interesting that the idea of older Henry visiting his future wife as a child is fine in the book, but creepy in the movie. The questions of how one behaves if we know our future, how you can appreciate the time you do have together, and how we make choices knowing what we know are very interesting and thought provoking. I also liked how the author considers the ability to travel through time as an evolutionary change in humans – a condition, not something one does with a machine. Oddly that premise made it easier to ignore the issues with physics. Sadly, upon this recent reading the secondary characters don’t hold up well. They are very stereotypical of their ethnicity and/or culture. While I would have given this a ‘4’ in 2005, given my more critical older eyes, it rates a ‘3.5’.