Review: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

There are many interesting elements here, but it felt like the book tried to do too many things at once, and so each one ended up under-developed:

1. There basic premise is somewhat absurd (using a time machine to rescue people who would’ve died in the past and bringing them to the present), but it had a lot of potential for exploring how people of the past would’ve dealt with modern society. The book touches on some of these ideas, and I enjoyed those parts of the book, but it felt underdeveloped. Honestly, you could probably write a full book following a single character from the past exploring our modern world, and recording their reactions, whereas this book has a few jokes about Spotify, television, and sex, and then jumps on to the next item…

2. The story somewhat abandons the time travel premise to pursue a basic romance plot. The characters are reasonably well developed, so it’s somewhat entertaining and charming, but again, felt underdeveloped, as the story jumps yet again…

3. Now the story swings back to a different aspect of time travel, with branching timelines, and lots of twists and turns. This part felt very rushed, jammed into the last 50 pages or so, and it fluctuates wildly between super clever, super confusing, and downright paradoxical (as time travel stories often are).

I think if this book stuck to any one of the three items above, it would’ve been terrific, but as it is, in my view, it teased lots of cool parts, but the whole was ultimately a bit of a let down.

Rating: 3.5 stars