I was definitely entertained! To begin with the book is written in long, drawn-out, run on sentences and is full of time-travel, science fiction jargon. It is interesting to see the wide range of feelings this novel has produced!I'll start by admitting that I am not normally a sci-fi reader, so I was looking for an entertaining novel, not good sci-fi. The only problem is Charles, himself, is stuck in the past, brooding on his distant and missing inventor father and his unhappy mother. His sidekicks are TAMMY, his machine's operating system and Ed, a nonexistent dog. Show More the hapless time travelers from themselves. Not recommended if you like: linear plot structure and non-run-on sentences. Recommendation: Despite the title, I actually think this book will appeal more to literary fiction fans who are willing to read over all of the sci-fi surface stuff to get at the metaphysical musings underneath. And my reaction to it is unsurprisingly much the same: parts of it I found fascinating, parts of it I found insightful, parts of it I found over-the-top, and while I found it intellectually engaging, for most of it there wasn't enough story for me to really get involved with it on an emotional level. actually felt the most similar to Jonathan Carroll's The Ghost in Love in its use of speculative fiction quirks and non-linear storytelling to explore a coming-of-age story in a philosophical and psychological space. Even once the plot get started, it's not even so much a proper plot, but simply a thread connecting one set of musings to the next. The surface details may be similar, but the narrator's way more neurotic (and rather whiney), and for at least the first 100 pages, he doesn't actually do anything except philosophize about the fact that he's not doing anything. My plot summary makes this sound a bit like a zany Jasper-Fforde-style madcap adventure, but that's a mistaken impression. My biggest problem with this book, though, was how incredibly long it took to find a plot. Personally, while I initially found it clever and charming, the "meta"-ness is unrelenting, and its self-aware quirkiness eventually got a kind of grating.
Whether that's a positive or a negative depends entirely on how much you go in for that sort of thing. This book dwells not only on the metaphysical, but also on the metafictional.
It's full of drifting thoughts and parenthetical musings, a number of which are quite profound, and couldn't have been found in a simpler story. It is, without question, beautifully written, and imaginative as hell. Review: This is one of those books that it seems like everyone either really loves or really hates, and I still - even a week after finishing it - can't quite decide which camp I belong to. Only once he gets caught in a time loop of his own does he realize that in order to break free, he'll have to confront his demons, starting with his own timeline. Charles himself is drifting, aimless, spending most of his time out of time and alone, as uncomfortable with the normal universe and linear time as he is with himself. Show More one-hour time loop of an idealized family dinner.
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