I keep going on about this book (and I will probably never quit). I’m so glad you brought it to my attention!!!
One thing I slightly disagree with you about is the characters–although I can see what you mean about them, they seem very true to life in one important way–they’re all seen from the perspective of an academic. What is important about them is what they’re thinking, whether that’s consistent, and how the way they think about someone else affects that other person.
If you don’t think that’s true to life, you haven’t been in an email conversation with the steering committee of a local political group that includes a number of serious responses to the plea to “think about not connecting our work on Sat. with the religious/Christan holiday on Sunday—-I am not a Christian, and while my “ethic” may be somehow religious-spiritual, my participation is completely secular. So, if Easter remains part of our/your understanding of Signs on the Square for Saturday, I’ll remain on the sideline that day.” I mean yes, distinctions are important, but they can sometimes mean the death of actually moving any ideas forward.
So it is with the characters in this book–the intellectuals are so busy teasing out possible meanings that they don’t see the breakthrough as soon as the adjunct type (that’s how I think of her, anyway–a person with a part-time job…).

I’m with Amy on the best most awesome thing about what we have NOW is modern plumbing. (Pls Trump, don’t take that away from me.) But also to Amy, there are some rather interesting race and gender discussions in this book that Jenny here doesn’t mention but the TOB does… just sayin’.

Plus what if you went back in time and it BROKE and then you’d be stuck there forever because they don’t have the parts O_O. And yes the future might be terrifying or it might be amazing but either way knowing would suck!

Oh, I am absolutely a baby’s-sex-finder-outer. If I CAN know it, I want to know! I found out with both of my girls.

Maybe if I could time travel quietly? If I could be a transparent eyeball, like Ralph Waldo Emerson says! Time travel but affect nothing! That would be ideal.

Hahaha, oh man, I think we’ve all gone through phases where we just befriended who was nearby. And I did appreciate the section early in the novel where the girls’ night group falls apart because the girls in question got married. There were parts I liked, but just overall it wasn’t quite my thing.

Right? So many bad outcomes! So few good outcomes! DOWN WITH TIME TRAVEL.