I arrived at work puffy-eyed, exhausted and emotionally wrecked. All thanks to Audrey Niffenegger, the author of The Time Traveler’s Wife. I didn’t sleep the whole night. I couldn’t put it down and I had to finish it and I did.

The Time Traveler’s Wife is a story about Henry DeTamble, who was born with a genetic disorder called Chrono-Displaced Syndrome. The condition allowed him to travel through time, either into the future or back into the past. Sounds like Back To The Future? Well, if only Henry was gifted with that sort of convenience that Marty McFly had. Henry had no control whatsoever over his time travelling. It would happen just like that, anywhere and anytime. Usually it would be triggered by stress, that it happened to Henry on his wedding day pretty much sums it up.

What’s worse is that Henry would be thrown into another time with not a single thread on his body, not a single foreign object. Not even his tooth filling was spared. And he would be famished. And now, imagine appearing out of nowhere, butt naked and starving. That was how Henry met Clare. Clare was six years old when Henry popped out of nowhere right in front of her. He was 36 years old. Henry knew who the little girl was, but Clare would only begin to get to know Henry.

From then on, Clare would meet Henry at specific dates given by “future Henry” up till she reached 18 years old. At 20, she finally met Henry in real time. Henry who was 8 years her senior. They would date and eventually get married. The trials and tribulations became bigger and bigger in the duration of their marriage, but neither would give each other up.

The story of Henry and Clare is amazingly well put together. Niffenegger has managed to illustrate their intense love for each other so well that something as simple as them hugging each other would get my eyes welling with tears.

I had hesitated to buy this book as I thought that it would turn out to be another sappy tale with no originality. Bought it anyway because it was on sale. As it turned out, I was wrong. Indeed, it’s only a traditional love story, but it is set in such an incredibly smart context that the book literally grabs you by the wrists and begs you to finish it.

My gauge for good shit is by how much tears I shed (the more the better), well let me just say after patting down the last page, I felt like I’ve got a part of my body sliced off. I feel for Henry and Clare and I want to reach into the pages and comfort them and pick at Henry’s DNA till he’s okay again.

It’s a great book. Get it. I can’t wait to stumble onto something like The Time Traveler’s Wife again.