The continuation of The Time Traveler's Wife

3.5 stars

Life Out of Order, indeed. I finished this novel days ago and have been contemplating my review ever since. This is quite a chaotic book, HUGE in scope but not delivering the emotional punch of the much loved The Time Traveller's Wife. I remember vividly the floods of tears whilst reading the first book. It was beautiful, absolutely devastating. Life Out of Order is wholly different and spends much capital on the issues of the day - climate change, government crackdowns and corruption, AI, gender fluidity, pandemics and general end of the world stuff. Though some of that has bearing on the story, itself, much of it just felt added to make this a book for modern sensibilities. 

Even as I write this I struggle to construct my thoughts. I have changed the star rating from 3 to 4 and back again three times by this point! 

Life Out of Order is really a book of two halves. The first half is Alba. The second is Oliver. Of the two characters I liked Oliver better. He felt fully fleshed out. Alba seemed surplus to requirement once Oliver was on the scene. In the first half she spent much of her time being deployed at a particular place and time for an undisclosed purpose, whatever her age. How did she manage that if you cannot control time travel? But here I go off on a tangent... Other than Alba's moments with Henry, Oliver's story trumped hers throughout. Poor Zack never had a chance. He was a two bit character barely given a backstory. I'm guessing he was only included to move the first half of the book along. So many of the characters were strong and likeable, feeling fully formed. But when a fully formed character does things counter to their natural inclination, and how they've been written to that point, it just feels false. I caught a number of false moments throughout and by the end I was ready for the finish. It just petered out as it neared the close. I felt the end, and its build up, was designed to elicit emotion that just didn't feel earned. No tears from me, I'm sorry to say.

If you loved The Time Traveler's Wife you might really enjoy Life Out of Order. I am glad I read it and now know what happened to the characters. At no point did I feel I should stop before the end. Other than a few false moments I did really appreciate the opportunity to delve into this epic novel.