Isabelle Allende 

Daughter of Fortune

I am a big fan of Isabelle Allende and enjoyed this novel, though not as much as some of her other novels and stories I have read. The first half of Daughter of Fortune kept me interested with the well-developed characters and poetic descriptions of Chile. I enjoy historical novels and feel that Allende does a beautiful job of taking us to another era in time and can almost imaging being there. 

The characters of Mama Fresia and Miss Rose are very dynamic and should have been the main characters in the story. The characters of Eliza and Jouquin became a bit redundant and after awhile I found myself wondering
when this novel was going to get moving again. While as I said I do love novels that are descriptive that bring us clear vision of another time and place, if not interspersed with action and drama, it gets a wee bit boring. Fortunately, Allende is a great writer to make us want to plod though to the end and grasp what we can even out of one of her lesser interesting novels. 
 

Time Traveler's Wife

Audrey Niffenegger

I had to force myself to finish reading this one. I  did not appreciate the jumping around in time and found it to be quite confusing. The characters themselves are often confused and surprised by non-linear time. I wasn't bothered by the use of profanity, descriptions of sexuality, or the idea that an adult Henry maintains contact with Claire as a child. But it's just the nonchalance of this writing and the droning on and on over nothing important that is irritating. For instance, there is a whole paragraph describing a game of pool. No description of the interactions between characters during said pool game,just the interruption of a whole paragraph about the technicalities of the game of pool was boring and offered nothing to the story itself. 

I was also annoyed at the random dropping of names like who knows who that fleeting mention of a character is, and who cares? 

 
Too many unclear references to characters that are tossed into the story but have nothing to do with the story. It's like having someone tell you about all of the co-workers or their neighbors you have never met. Who cares? This novel went nowhere, and I had to force myself to finish it.