The Night Bookmobile

brittany — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 16:00:00 +0000

I am new to the world of graphic novels and so is The Night Bookmobile’s author Audrey Niffenegger, bestselling author of The Time Traveler’s Wife. According to the author, the book was inspired by a short H.G. Wells story and a dream she had as a teenager. In just thirty-three pages, Niffenegger manages to intrigue and captivate with the story of Alexandra, a young woman who gets into a fight with her live-in boyfriend and begins wandering the neighborhood in the dead of night hoping to blow off some steam. That’s when she comes across The Night Bookmobile, a mobile library run by Mr. Openshaw.

Once inside, Alexandra soon discovers that the library is filled with everything she’s ever read, from old takeout menus and her childhood diary to her family Bible and various Jane Austen titles. When daylight breaks Mr. Openshaw rushes Alexandra off, not allowing her to check out any of the books. For weeks after this bizarre encounter, Alexandra wanders the streets in the middle of the night searching for the mysterious Mr. Openshaw and his roving library. Her boyfriend, convinced she’s having an affair, eventually leaves Alexandra and so she lives alone, spending a majority of her time reading.

Nine years later in front of Wrigley Field, Alexandra has another chance encounter with the bookmobile. Once inside she takes note of all the new titles that have been added and asks Mr. Openshaw if she can be his assistant, but he refuses and recommends that she become a “regular librarian”—and so she does.

Twelve years elapse before she sees Mr. Openshaw again and during that time she’s become a librarian leading a rather solitary life. The story ends in a rather surprising way just a few pages later, which left me feeling a bit shocked and sad that Alexandra’s story was over so soon. Thankfully, this is just the first installment of a much larger work called The Library that will be released in segments.

From its very first pages, The Night Bookmobile has a sort of lovely sadness that lingers over each frame and you find yourself—right along with Alexandra—loving the idea of the bookmobile for unidentifiable reasons and wondering what it all means. With The Night Bookmobile’s quiet intensity, Niffenegger has made me a graphic novel believer.

Written by: Tina Vasquez, October 14th 2010

The Time Traveler’s Wife

admin — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 10:39:00 +0000

By Audrey Niffenegger

Harvest Books

When I started reading The Time Traveler's Wife, I was hooked right away. I don't read fiction very often, so it was a refreshing change of pace, and the concept was cool: a man with a genetic condition that makes him time travel, but he can't control it.

The narration in the novel switches back and forth between the two main characters, Clare and Henry. We jump through time to follow their love story, which starts when Clare is only six, and see it develop as Clare grows up. Each time the narration switches, we are told who is speaking, where they are in time, and how old they are.

There are a lot of things I liked about this novel. I liked the relationship between the main characters, and the way we see that story unfold. Their love of food, their quirks, their shared interest in punk music—it all made me feel like the characters were real people, like I knew them. Their flaws, the secrets they keep from each other, and the way we learn the truth made me connect with the characters throughout most of the story.

I also liked trying to keep up with the dates and the ages of all the characters, and matching up events we learned about in passing with what we see happening. The many parent-child relationships in the novel were also true-to-life, and I appreciated the range of experiences. All of these things kept me very happy during the first three quarters of the book. After that point, the story started to drag a bit.

The reader is well past the point of climax by the time threads in the story start looping together. One already knows everything that is going to happen, and suddenly has to wait another 100 pages or so before it actually happens. I found myself growing impatient and just wanted to finish already.

This was also around the time that I stopped liking Clare. Her obsession with having a child started to irritate me, particularly when she says that adoption is fake and that it's like pretending. But what really bothered me was how the story ended. Even though Clare spends most of the book waiting around for Henry, I still imagined her as a strong woman with her own will and an independent streak. By the last few chapters, it's as if her life is meaningless without that relationship. She falls apart and we never see her put herself back together, which is what I kept hoping would happen.

I can certainly see this book's appeal as a great love story between two people who can't live without one another. Perhaps I left my feminist lens on for too long, though, because that wasn't enough for me. Overall, though, I enjoyed the story and did get swept away for a bit into a world where time travel was possible and a love was meant to be.

Written by: frau sally benz, August 16th 2009