I knew then they must have shot Henry and I figured the ending would be his death. Well, imagine my surprise when Henry actually learned he was dying on page 390. That gave me 150 pages to go. I was SURE there would be a way out, but not only did he die when he was supposed to, he also had tragedy after tragedy loaded upon him in a way that was unjustifiably melodramatic.

Henry was rapidly aging due to his stressful life. His growing frailty was sufficient. That alone would have rendered him unable to outrun the bullet in the orchard. His inability to keep running, to keep fighting the elements and the oppressors he encountered during time travel would have been enough to lead to his death. Why did his feet have to be amputated on top of everything else??

The onslaught of one tragic, shocking event after the other overwhelmed the end of the story. It was akin to using a hammer to polish a diamond.

Many readers were upset because Clare seemed to waste her life waiting for Henry for 45 years. That doesn’t bother me because it is a romantic illustration of the depth of her love, which I found satisfying, so that would actually be my preferred interpretation of the book’s ending, but I don’t think its accurate.

For one thing, Henry was in a closet when he walked in on Clare. The closet was full of raincoats and galoshes. Plural. This indicated to me that Clare wasn’t living alone. Furthermore, she was in a room swathed in sunlight. In fact, the light was almost blinding to Henry. I think this suggests that there was still brightness in her life, even then. She was not alone, in darkness.

She lived off of the beach, with the sand, close to nature. She was going out to gather the branches off of the ground eventually she said. At 82. I think the brief words used to describe her final home suggests that her life continued to be open, active and full, even after Henry was gone.

Plus, she was drinking tea. She and Henry had both been coffee addicts. Back when she was a child, Henry told her how she would drink her coffee and she told him she didn’t even like coffee yet. She didn’t like being told what she would like in it. She wanted to decide these things herself, not because he’d told her that’s how it would be. So, in the end when she’s drinking the tea, I think that change in beverage represents the life she made on her own, without him.

I don’t think she wasted away longing for him. After all, we’d already learned that sometimes she liked to be alone. But she was always glad when he returned. Even though she waited for him to come back, I wouldn’t assume that all of her waiting years were barren.

just my opinion… but i’d say it was worth the read : )