Screwing With Time Sounds Like Fun, But I Guess It Isn’t

After reading „The Time Traveler’s Wife“ about one year ago I recently finished „The Confessions of Max Tivoli“ by Andrew Sean Greer and I came to the conclusion that I can be grateful for a) not aging backwards and b) not jumping around in time uncontrollably (Is that even a word? And if it is, did I spell it right?). Also, I am relieved that my husband’s hair has actually gone grayer in the six years we’ve been together (besides, I think a little bit of grey is sexy, but that’s just me) and there hasn’t been any unexplained absenties with him returning naked on the kitchen floor. So phew.

If I had to compare the two books, which just is kind of unavoidable, I like „The Time Traveler’s Wife“ a lot more. But you have to know that I loved that book. No, LOVED it. With a capital l. It made me cry for more than 100 pages, No, SERIOUSLY cry. As in bawling your eyes out, whimpering, sniffing and losing more bodily fluids than I could possibly have. For 100 pages. I hardly EVER cry about books. I cry about cheesy movies and kind of feel ashamed for it (but not really), but books… they really have to get me.
So, that’s how much I loved that book and when I say that I liked it a lot more than another book, that other book can still be really really good. It just doesn’t compare to the hell Audrey Niffenegger put me through. (And on the train, I tell ya! Try reading the last fifty pages on a train and not have people stare at you, because you fucking have tears running down your face in streams.)

The Confessions of Max Tivoli is a really good book. I found it a little hard to get into, mostly because I got the setting all wrong. For the first few pages I was convinced that it was set in New York City. I don’t know why that was, I think I just figured that if the story takes place in 1871 and is set in a city, it MUST be New York City. I also didn’t like Alice that much as a teenager and found it a little bit hard to keep track of Max’s real age and Max’s apparent age. Apart from that I really enjoyed the book.

Both books do a pretty good job to remind you are damn lucky to age alright and don’t have the tendency to visit your past and/or future self occasionally. Because it seems that never works out fine.