Reviews tagging 'Pedophilia'

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

19 reviews

kirsto's review against another edition

Go to review page

While the premise of this book was interesting, I could not get over the overt grooming and pedophilia that is framed as somehow not that because the two main characters are a similar age in the present and end up married. It’s shocking to me that this isn’t mentioned  in every review of this book. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

melcally's review against another edition

Go to review page

0.5

Hated it. Even if you know you’re married to her in the future, if you meet your wife at 7. You’re still grooming her. Disgusting. It would’ve changed everything if they age both met each other as kids. It’s just weird. Somehow Claire was able to not fall in love with child Henry even though she was married to the adult version. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

frankieclc's review against another edition

Go to review page

kept waiting for justification of henry going back to clare and them having a weird adult minor relationship when she was growing up but then i just realised there's no justification for that you just didn't need to write it, also the writing seemed to get worse as i progressed and with me thinking non stop about how weird it is that a 36+ year old man was making out with a 16 year old....  i have other fish to fry besties

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

inkspitblog's review against another edition

Go to review page

Dnf not sure why anyone finds paedophilia romantic
Stephen Moffat really read this and went I love paedophilia let’s make River Song

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

hjb_128's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.25


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

leer_amor's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

I feel very conflicted reviewing this book. There are a lot of parts of this book that I really liked, and the vibe was immaculate. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there are some parts of this book that are wildly inappropriate. And that there’s some actual grooming in this book that is awful. This might be considered a spoiler so here’s your warning, this book is about a man named Henry who can time travel. He doesn’t have any control over when or where he travels to and when he time travels he always arrives naked. He often visits the childhood of his future wife Clare. So he’s basically having a relationship with her when she’s in her teens. And I know in the future they’re married but it just seems awful to me that he’s having this relationship with her when she’s younger. It quite literally is grooming. I think this book has not aged well. It was quite a success when it was first published and they made a movie or show about it, but the series was also canceled because of concerns of grooming. So yeah… I just think here are better time travel books out there… Interesting premise but poor execution. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

alexandrawpayne's review against another edition

Go to review page

medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

This contains light spoilers.

This book is a creative concept but has several problematic themes. A romance that transcends time itself is fascinating, particularly through a sci-fi lens. 
However, the grooming and pedophilia riddled throughout the story is impossible to get past. There are several mentions of the husband being sexual attracted to his wife while she is still a child and him trying to fight off the urge to be with her sexually before she’s legal.

When they have sex for the first time, the wife is freshly 18, and the husband is in his 40s. He has known her since she was 6 and has been grooming her since then. 

The characters are also flat. I found myself not caring what happened to anyone. Some of the plot was set up for deeper character development that never occurred. 

By the end of the book, I felt like nothing had changed.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

riverofhorton's review against another edition

Go to review page

I had to take a couple of days to cool off after deciding to stop reading this book, I just found there to be too much homophobia, racism, and misogyny to continue.

The final straw for me was getting jumpscared by an utterly needless homophobic slur (as it was until very recently) less than 100 pages in. Given the 'past' parts of the book are set in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, I could have deal with some casual prejudice, so as the world was at that time, especially if it were there to make a point and/or portray that character as being a negative person. But these prejudices are not only blatant, but could have been removed from the story without it losing anything.

And there is also the moral weirdness surrounding the relationship between itself. From Claire's perspective, she first met Henry at the age of ~5 years old, when he was in his 40s. He visited her regularly growing up, even waiting for her to turn 18 so he could have sex with her on her birthday. Sounds creepy, right? From his perspective though, he first her in his late 20s, her being early 20s, and the relationship proceeded somewhat normally to begin with, only a couple of mentions of how long she has known a future version of him. It's just kind of a mess, and considering he could time travel as a child as well, I don't quite understand why he couldn't have been a child of a similar age, or even have the whole thing contain within their respective adulthoods.

It's such a shame, the basic premise of two people falling in love out of sync because of time travel has the potential to be incredible, but this was just a disappointment. It's the first book I've ever DNFed, and it saddens me that it's a Sci-Fi book (one of my favourite genres) that can claim that title.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

taylormadespines's review against another edition

Go to review page

This story has not aged well. Henry is a groomer through and through. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

mrs_reading_runes's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The Time Traveler’s Wife 
By: Audrey Niffenegger

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Trigger Warnings⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️
Suicide
Pedophilia 
Sex & Violence 

Many have watched the movie and show. 
This is the origin, this is NOT a love story as expected in my opinion its a tragedy. 
Henry is a time traveler, that witnesses death and sadness at a young age. This creates his path of a life of drugs and alcohol. 
Clare is 6 when she meets Henry who is already middle aged. This is Clare’s present and Henrys Past, Present and Future. 

As they are already married in Henrys present with his belief he cannot change the pst and future he in a way grooms her to love him. First as a person and friend then romantically. 
See she’s not given a choice but this is debatable. Henry is the first and only man she loves besides her father. 
AT AGE 6!!
The story is confusing in the aspect of dates and times because how old is he in his present, the past and future as he time travels I eventually skipped over the dates. 
You will meet Gomez, Henrys “best friend” he makes me sick. 
This book really is about Clarethe girl with no free will, tortured by love and time. 
I cried when I finished this read because it was exhausting. This is no happy ending it is all very sad. 
Deep down in the plot,between each line of text there is a love story however if I didn’t LOVE the movie and the show, this book would have been 1 star or DNF which I have never done. 
I appreciate the authors imagery and the development with so many moving parts but I am sad that the movie and show was better then the book. 😒

Expand filter menu Content Warnings