Friday, October 16, 2009

"The Time Traveler's Wife" Book Review

"It's hard being left behind." Clare is always being left in the present while Henry time travels. Although time traveling is not always pleasant for Henry, Clare has a harder time. All she can do is wait. Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife amazed me.


The author's writing style is very unique. There is not just one narrator, so the point of view chages throughout the story. Part of the story is told by Clare and the rest is told by Henry.

Henry is a time traveler. In this book time traveling is a genetic disorder. Henry cannot control when he travels or where he goes. Sometimes he goes into the past, and other times he travels into the future. Clare is Henry's wife. She is very patient.

The Time Traveler's Wife takes place in Chicago, most of the time. The author does an excellent job of making the reader picture the setting by using many vivid details.

In the story Clare meets Henry when she is six. So Clare knows Henry almost her whole life. Henry does not meet Clare until he is 28. When Henry is older he time travels back to see Clare when she was a little girl. Clare and Henry get married because they are meant for each other. They have a complicated marriage though, because Henry is always leaving and cannot control when he comes back. One time he is gone a very long time, so to make it up to Clare he wins her the lottery. They use the money to buy a big, wonderful house and decide to start a family. They try many times buy keep having miscarriages. Finally, in an unconventional way, they succeed and have a girl. She is a time traveler too but is a little better at time traveling than Henry is. Henry continues to time travel and eventually runs into trouble.

This book was similar to a few other books I have read because the point of view changes. I loved this book, but I do not recommend The Time Traveler's Wife to anyone immature.

536 pages

Thursday, October 15, 2009

"That Summer" Book Review

Many parts of Haven's life are changing, her parents got a divorce and her dad is remarried, her sister is getting married, and her mom is going to Europe. Haven feels like she is not important anymore. Sarah Dessen's That Summer is a story about Haven finding herself.

The theme of That Summer is be yourself and comfortable in your own skin. Haven is fifteen years old and 6 feet tall. She feels out of place all the time because she is not comfortable with who she is.

I like the author's writing style the books that she writes are easy to read. She uses common terms and makes the characters sound like they are real people.

There were many characters in That Summer. I have already mentioned one, Haven. Haven is fifteen years old and unusually tall. She feels like her world is falling apart, because so many aspects of her life are changing. Ashley, Haven's sister is short and pretty. She is getting married to Lewis. Haven's mom is very stressed all the time. Sumner, Ashley's ex-boyfriend, is Haven's go-to person. When Haven is having a bad day she goes to Sumner and expects him to make everything better. These characters are believable as real people because their emotions are so real.

In That Summer, Haven is having a horrible summer. Her parents got a divorce, her dad remarried, her sister is getting married, her mom might be going to Europe, and her best friend has completely changed. Ashley has had many boyfriends, so many that instead of marking big events by dates, Haven marks them by which boyfriend Ashley had at the time. Haven's favorite of Ashley's boyfriends is Sumner. There was one summer that Haven's family went to the beach with Sumner. Haven remembers this summer as her favorite because everyone was happy. Now that she is having a horrible summer, she tries to hang out with Sumner as much as she can. Haven is a peace-maker. One day she wakes up and decides she is not going to put up with anything anymore. She throws a shoe at a rude customer at work, then storms out and runs away. While she is out she runs into Sumner. Haven talks to him for a while and realizes he is not who she thinks he is.

This book is similar to the other Sara Dessen books I have read. I recommend this book to someone that likes Sara Dessen books, this book is not her best one but is still interesting.

198 pages

Monday, October 5, 2009

"The Time Machine" Review

Time travel is a mystery to us. In The Time Machine, H.G. Wells and the time traveler try to explore this world we know nothing of with an adventurous story.

The theme of The Time Machine is be careful what you wish for. The time traveler wished he could travel through time, he got this wish but was led into trouble.

The writing style of H.G. Wells is much different than the writing styles I am used to. H.G. Wells wrote this book a long time ago, so the slang has changed. This made The Time Machine hard for me to read. Another different part of Wells' writing style was the lack of names. Hardly anyone in this book had a name, the characters were referred to as "the time traveler" or "the professor."

The characters in this book were hard to imagine. The main reason for this was the lack of names and detail. Also, many of the characters are not people. Most of the characters are the creatures from the future.

The setting of The Time Machine was great. The world that the time traveler was in is much different than my world, but the use of detail made reading and imagining where the story was taking place easy.

The time traveler is an inventor. He invented a time machine and desperately wanted to try to travel through time. He hosts a weekly dinner party. One week he was telling the guests about his machine. The next week he was no where to be found at the time of the dinner party. When he arrives he tells the guests about his time travel experience. Almost the entire book is the time traveler telling his dinner guests the adventures he experienced in time travel.

This book is nothing like any book I have ever read. I do not read science fiction novels so I cannot connect this book to any other book I have read.

I would recommend this book to adults that like old science fiction novels. The Time Machine was difficult to read, but overall, not a horrible book.

83 pages