I’m not sure what compelled me to read The Invisible Hour at this time. Maybe because it actually became available at the library much quicker than I expected. Maybe it was some remberence of that horrible Honors English class that destroyed my love of reading and American literature along with it. I’m not sure I ever finished The Scarlet Letter back in school. Maybe it’s my fascination with cults. It doesn’t matter.
After years of avoiding reading Alice Hoffman (two other of her books were book club reads, The Marriage of Opposites and the Museum of Extraordinary Things), I finally sat down to read one of her books. I’m going to tell you right now, I lover her voice. As with Amor Towles, she could probably write a shopping list and I would enjoy reading it. I look forward to going back and reading those Book Club books now.
That said, I guess I should tell you why I only gave her four stars instead of five. I found the story structure/pace problematic.`And it has nothing to do with the time travel.
I loved the first two chapters and part of the third. Then midway through the third, Mia’s story became rushed. Ms. Hoffman glossed over so many years to get to Part 2. I think I would have edited it differently.
If it were me, I would have extended chapter two to include the resolution of Mia’s escape (okay I dobn’t think I’m giving too much away since this is in the prologue). Then part two could be one chapter in 1837, one present day Mia, and another in 1837 chapter (hard to be more specific without spoilers). I think then we could have picked up with Mia in the present day, filled in her intervening years via dialog or more exposition, and then her story wouldn’t have felt so forced. Lastly, part 3 could continue as it did.
As far as the time travel goes, again, it’s in the book description, it has a very Somewhere in Time crossed with Back to the Future feel to it. The former I bought the latter made me feel a little cheesy.
Lastly, the character development. I think it’s hard to develop so many characters thoroughly in a book that’s only 250 pages. Almost all the supporting characters felt a bit canned or stereotypical, but that didn’t bother me. I think though I would have liked more time seeing Mia grow (again those rushed years) to get more plausibility as to her behavior as an adult.
But as a said when I started. I’m willing to gloss over all of this just to read Ms. Hoffman’s words. As mentioned above, I give this one 4 stars.