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authorannafaundez's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Took over 50% of this book for it to pick up. It kept repeating itself over and over too, which lengthened it more.
All the family connections didn't feel cobbled together, per se, but there's still an unbelievable, not-quite-right, quality to the family tree. That, and it was painfully obvious who was a descendant of whom long before the reveal. However, for that, the book gets a pass from me, because it's for kids.
Overall, I struggled a bit through this one due to how repetitive it was, and it didn't seem to advance the series.
All the family connections didn't feel cobbled together, per se, but there's still an unbelievable, not-quite-right, quality to the family tree. That, and it was painfully obvious who was a descendant of whom long before the reveal. However, for that, the book gets a pass from me, because it's for kids.
Overall, I struggled a bit through this one due to how repetitive it was, and it didn't seem to advance the series.
Content Warnings
Minor: Child abuse, Death of parent, and Domestic abuse
kcrouth's review against another edition
4.0
This is my favorite so far of the Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet. I love the story arc and the fascinating concepts and message of the story. I was somewhat confused by all the jumping between generations in time, and didn't come away with a solid grasp of all the generational relationships between the characters, but I loved the story enough to be willing to re-read it to get a better handle on all the interrelationships. It has a strong message that what we do in our time makes a difference to future generations - something too often forgotten as we chart our course through our lives. This is a great story :)
morgob's review against another edition
5.0
Oh wow!! Oh my goodness, I loved this book! It was so extraordinary and unique and exciting and sad and terrible and beautiful!!!
I picked up this book from the library one day because I wanted something old. A Wrinkle in Time was one of my favorite books when I was younger. I wanted to read something familiar but new, so I went looking for Madeleine L'Engle's books. I found this one, which I hadn't read yet. It went by so fast, but the story seemed so intense that it went on forever. There's just something about her books that is so entrancing. They are truly magical. They can be sort of children's books, but they are more young adult books, I think, and I think they are perfect for adults. People of all ages can enjoy them. There's the magical element, the science fiction and fantasy, but there are also more serious aspects of them. They are fun because of how otherworldly they are, but they carry heavy stories with them. This book was so sad, but it was so good and so... fulfilling. I loved every page. I can praise her books for hours. A very good read at a most perfect time.
I picked up this book from the library one day because I wanted something old. A Wrinkle in Time was one of my favorite books when I was younger. I wanted to read something familiar but new, so I went looking for Madeleine L'Engle's books. I found this one, which I hadn't read yet. It went by so fast, but the story seemed so intense that it went on forever. There's just something about her books that is so entrancing. They are truly magical. They can be sort of children's books, but they are more young adult books, I think, and I think they are perfect for adults. People of all ages can enjoy them. There's the magical element, the science fiction and fantasy, but there are also more serious aspects of them. They are fun because of how otherworldly they are, but they carry heavy stories with them. This book was so sad, but it was so good and so... fulfilling. I loved every page. I can praise her books for hours. A very good read at a most perfect time.
maryellis_me's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
3.5
novelinsights's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
I was thrilled as an adult to discover that my much beloved childhood book, A Wrinkle in Time, was part of a whole series of books and that I had so much more to the story to enjoy, and I did greatly enjoy A Wind in the Door. It felt like a fitting follow-up to the original, and I moved hurriedly to this next installment. This, however, felt like an entirely different story altogether.
We'll start by discussing the disappointment I felt that, in only the third book of the series, Meg is already an adult and pregnant. I'd hoped the series would be the science fiction adventures that Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin had growing up, hopefully even featuring further appearances from the Mrs. Ws of book 1, but instead, they have two adventures in their whole childhood? I find that somewhat hard to accept. What was so important about these kids that they were involved in the first two stories if they were only going to be left alone to have relatively normal childhoods for so much time after that? Talk about a disappointment. Of course, Charles Wallace is 15 in this book, so we do still have a few years of his childhood to work with, but it wasn't the same.
Even so, I would have been willing to forgive this wrong done upon the Murrays if this book had held up to the weirdness and uniqueness of the first two, but it was really quite dull in comparison. Rather than adventuring to other planets or other science fictional settings, the majority of this book takes place in the Northeastern United States as Charles Wallace travels to various points in history to learn about the history of a pair of families. Now, sure, time travel is a fun science fictional concept, and there are interesting ways this story could have been done, but I don't think it really took them.
My biggest complaint about how this story worked was that Meg and Charles Wallace both took a backseat to these historical figures. Charles Wallace's job is to kythe with these figures, live their lives vicariously through them, and possibly influence their knowledge slightly in order to help certain specific events happen. Meg, meanwhile, stayed home in her own time and place and kythed with Charles Wallace to follow the events of the story and do some research at home to pass along to him. Therefore, we effectively get a story about one protagonist watching another protagonist watch random people through history, and it's never quite clear what specific events are influenced by Charles Wallace and how, so in reality, it feels like just a story about the historical figures that got forced into the framework of the Wrinkle in Time universe, perhaps to give L'Engle an excuse to write it.
Aside from the horrible passivity of reducing our beloved protagonists to a frame story, the historical elements of the story don't hold up well, either. The book specifically follows two families throughout history, and they intermingle so thoroughly over the generations that it starts to feel very incestuous after a while. Each generation seems to use variations on the same subsets of names, as well, which my have been for clarity but which was difficult to believe would actually happen in real life.
The portrayal of Native American culture seemed bad, as well, though I don't have a lot of specific knowledge about it, personally. The first Native American character we meet is naive and simplistic in a way that didn't feel genuine to the people he was supposed to be representing. After him, the story focuses more on the interbreeding between Native American people and Welsh immigrants and focuses on a theme of blue-eyed people being forces of good, to the point where this could be construed as the central theme of the book. While I like to believe L'Engle didn't intentionally mean anything racist by this, the clear preference for blue eyes and the context that it is a trait coming from white blood felt like a pretty questionable choice to make for the story.
There were some cool things about the book, overshadowed though they might have been. The concept of kything was cool, and there were occasional interludes involving a unicorn, including a time-out in which Charles Wallace explored the unicorn world briefly. I would have liked to have seen this section be given more significance in the overall story, but I was at least glad to have the adventure at all.
The concept of the rune was also kind of cool. While it had a distinctly Christian wording that didn't personally gel with me, I liked the idea of an incantation of sorts for protection, and I particularly appreciated the way L'Engle worked it into the chapter names and the events of each specific chapter.
I also liked that L'Engle took a character (Mrs. O'Keefe) who did not have a good reputation in previous books and humanized her, giving some backstory to the bad life decisions she may have made and actually bringing us readers to care for her.
Overall, I will continue with the series since there are only two books left and they're relatively short, but I am worried about how the other two books will go now. I'm much less optimistic, especially since our beloved main characters will only be getting older with each installment, I'm sure.
We'll start by discussing the disappointment I felt that, in only the third book of the series, Meg is already an adult and pregnant. I'd hoped the series would be the science fiction adventures that Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin had growing up, hopefully even featuring further appearances from the Mrs. Ws of book 1, but instead, they have two adventures in their whole childhood? I find that somewhat hard to accept. What was so important about these kids that they were involved in the first two stories if they were only going to be left alone to have relatively normal childhoods for so much time after that? Talk about a disappointment. Of course, Charles Wallace is 15 in this book, so we do still have a few years of his childhood to work with, but it wasn't the same.
Even so, I would have been willing to forgive this wrong done upon the Murrays if this book had held up to the weirdness and uniqueness of the first two, but it was really quite dull in comparison. Rather than adventuring to other planets or other science fictional settings, the majority of this book takes place in the Northeastern United States as Charles Wallace travels to various points in history to learn about the history of a pair of families. Now, sure, time travel is a fun science fictional concept, and there are interesting ways this story could have been done, but I don't think it really took them.
My biggest complaint about how this story worked was that Meg and Charles Wallace both took a backseat to these historical figures. Charles Wallace's job is to kythe with these figures, live their lives vicariously through them, and possibly influence their knowledge slightly in order to help certain specific events happen. Meg, meanwhile, stayed home in her own time and place and kythed with Charles Wallace to follow the events of the story and do some research at home to pass along to him. Therefore, we effectively get a story about one protagonist watching another protagonist watch random people through history, and it's never quite clear what specific events are influenced by Charles Wallace and how, so in reality, it feels like just a story about the historical figures that got forced into the framework of the Wrinkle in Time universe, perhaps to give L'Engle an excuse to write it.
Aside from the horrible passivity of reducing our beloved protagonists to a frame story, the historical elements of the story don't hold up well, either. The book specifically follows two families throughout history, and they intermingle so thoroughly over the generations that it starts to feel very incestuous after a while. Each generation seems to use variations on the same subsets of names, as well, which my have been for clarity but which was difficult to believe would actually happen in real life.
The portrayal of Native American culture seemed bad, as well, though I don't have a lot of specific knowledge about it, personally. The first Native American character we meet is naive and simplistic in a way that didn't feel genuine to the people he was supposed to be representing. After him, the story focuses more on the interbreeding between Native American people and Welsh immigrants and focuses on a theme of blue-eyed people being forces of good, to the point where this could be construed as the central theme of the book. While I like to believe L'Engle didn't intentionally mean anything racist by this, the clear preference for blue eyes and the context that it is a trait coming from white blood felt like a pretty questionable choice to make for the story.
There were some cool things about the book, overshadowed though they might have been. The concept of kything was cool, and there were occasional interludes involving a unicorn, including a time-out in which Charles Wallace explored the unicorn world briefly. I would have liked to have seen this section be given more significance in the overall story, but I was at least glad to have the adventure at all.
The concept of the rune was also kind of cool. While it had a distinctly Christian wording that didn't personally gel with me, I liked the idea of an incantation of sorts for protection, and I particularly appreciated the way L'Engle worked it into the chapter names and the events of each specific chapter.
I also liked that L'Engle took a character (Mrs. O'Keefe) who did not have a good reputation in previous books and humanized her, giving some backstory to the bad life decisions she may have made and actually bringing us readers to care for her.
Overall, I will continue with the series since there are only two books left and they're relatively short, but I am worried about how the other two books will go now. I'm much less optimistic, especially since our beloved main characters will only be getting older with each installment, I'm sure.
typewriterjess's review against another edition
1.0
What the heck happened?
I really enjoyed both A Wrinkle in Time as well as A Wind in the Door. And then there's...this.
A Swiftly Tilting Planet has Charles Wallace go it alone with a unicorn (with a crazy long name that I no longer remember) to save the world! Should be fantastic, right? Now he can prove himself at last! He can become the hero the world needs in this dire hour of Near-Nuke-Ness!
But alas. He does not. Or, at least, not epicly.
Instead he spends roughly 87.5% of this novel kything-I...think?-with random people throughout time. This was all in an attempt to stop an angry dictator from bombing the US. This wouldn't have been so bad except for we almost never hear CW say or do anything that affects these people...at all. There were just so many people I really didn't care about- AND THEY ALL HAD THE SAME NAME. Oh my gosh. For a bit there I thought the same people were time travelling with CW...XD Their stories were super long-winded and all involved somebody saying 'swiftly' a bunch, which annoyed me way more than it should have.
Maybe the most jarring thing is how, starting this book, we randomly leapt ahead roughly- I think 5 years?- into the future, and Meg and Calvin were married, apparently. This was great and whatever, but I'd never picked up any hints of on-screen romance in the first two Time books. They were friends, but that's all I got... I hate to say it, but no foreshadowing of the romance is poor writing. Maybe I shouldn't fault this because this is supposedly a children's series...anyway.
I won't be continuing the series, sadly. *Hops on unicorn* *Flies away*
I really enjoyed both A Wrinkle in Time as well as A Wind in the Door. And then there's...this.
A Swiftly Tilting Planet has Charles Wallace go it alone with a unicorn (with a crazy long name that I no longer remember) to save the world! Should be fantastic, right? Now he can prove himself at last! He can become the hero the world needs in this dire hour of Near-Nuke-Ness!
But alas. He does not. Or, at least, not epicly.
Instead he spends roughly 87.5% of this novel kything-I...think?-with random people throughout time. This was all in an attempt to stop an angry dictator from bombing the US. This wouldn't have been so bad except for we almost never hear CW say or do anything that affects these people...at all. There were just so many people I really didn't care about- AND THEY ALL HAD THE SAME NAME. Oh my gosh. For a bit there I thought the same people were time travelling with CW...XD Their stories were super long-winded and all involved somebody saying 'swiftly' a bunch, which annoyed me way more than it should have.
Maybe the most jarring thing is how, starting this book, we randomly leapt ahead roughly- I think 5 years?- into the future, and Meg and Calvin were married, apparently. This was great and whatever, but I'd never picked up any hints of on-screen romance in the first two Time books. They were friends, but that's all I got... I hate to say it, but no foreshadowing of the romance is poor writing. Maybe I shouldn't fault this because this is supposedly a children's series...anyway.
I won't be continuing the series, sadly. *Hops on unicorn* *Flies away*
destobie's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
julied1964's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
authoraugust's review against another edition
5.0
this is my favorite of the Time Quartet, by far, and re-reading it was a joy. L'Engle's cleverness and intricately interwoven plot gives me chills every time.
karinlib's review against another edition
4.0
For some reason, I had not read this book, until now. I have read the first two books in the series multiple times. A Wrinkle in Time is an all time favorite. I loved being back in L'Engle's world.
Meg is married to Calvin, and she is expecting their first child. She has returned home for Thanksgiving and the family is together again. Mr. Murry has received a call from the White House. The President believes a South American country will declare war, with a strong possibility of it being nuclear. Thoroughly this entry in the Time Quintet.
Meg is married to Calvin, and she is expecting their first child. She has returned home for Thanksgiving and the family is together again. Mr. Murry has received a call from the White House. The President believes a South American country will declare war, with a strong possibility of it being nuclear. Thoroughly this entry in the Time Quintet.