This is a fantastically written book which got me hooked from the very first page I read. It is the first book by Audrey Niffenegger (the author) but I now want to read more of her work. It is a completely different genre to the books I usually read and I probably wouldn't have given it a go but something made me start reading it.

The story is about a man (Henry) who has the ability to time travel back and forth throughout his own life, jumping from his present back to his past and also into his future. He meets his future wife when she is a teenager (Clare) and it follows their intricate lives over the next 20 years or so. It sounds like it could get fairly complicated but it is mostly easy to follow. At the beginning of each section, which could be as short as a paragraph or two, or many pages long, it would indicate how old Henry and Clare are, so you would always be aware of what time Henry was living in. There were a couple of points where I got slightly confused and had to check the beginning of the chapter I was reading to remind myself what age he was but on the whole it was straightforward to follow (if you could grasp the strange concept of him travelling through time!).

Basically it is a love story with science fiction/fantasy elements to it. I thought the characters were drawn extremely realistically and you really felt like you got to know them. The author has written quite a lengthy book (528 pages) and it covers many years throughout, but it is not too long so that you get bored. It is hard to put it down once you're reading it and you can't wait to see what happens with every chapter you read. The ending is brilliant, I won't give it away but I just felt that it was a superb ending, so poignant and touching.

It is available from most retailers which sell books but it is probably cheapest to buy online at Amazon - £4.58 at the time of writing this. I definitely recommend reading it even if you think you might not like it from reading the back of the book.