Reviews with content warning for Death - The Ministry of Time

Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

235 reviews

andreafw's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

The first 3/4 of this book is enjoyable, with mystery, a bit of romance, and clever writing. But I got a bit lost in the last 1/4 trying to keep track of all of the characters and who works for whom.

Content Warnings

cassie7e's review against another edition

4.75

emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Emotionally taut and fraught with detached idealization. This book complicates literary sci fi* with a confused sense of identity, as our MC is mixed race and mixed in personal loyalties. I found our MC insufferable and romantically self-absorbed, meanwhile falling in love with every character she did as viewed through her experiences: Graham, Maggie, and Arthur. I grinned at Maggie's vernacular ("malodorous expression"), giggled at Graham's sedate charm, and sighed over Arthur's sweet and earnest disposition (and his reference to Wilfred Owen, so offhand). There's also a tragedy in how every character and plot still serves colonialism and narrowmindedness. I'm not sure any of our characters with agency were blameless or unvictimized, whether they had self serving or ostensibly more noble aims.

The prose is also studded with vivid and unique description that caught in my throat and made the characters and world feel embodied:
"put cold things in their mouths and the cold walked around their stomachs"
"put her thoughts out to dry [on the shrine]"
"holding me in his arms, the way poems hold clauses"

*This novel is literary first, sci fi second, and as such does not place emphasis on the scientific workings or implications but rather on the inner experiences of the main character facing the strange circumstances. I judge it accordingly.

Content Warnings

cj13's review against another edition

3.5

dark tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

extraordinary_nae's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous challenging emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I really loved the characters in this book, their personalities were really front and center throughout the story. I put that the book is a mix of plot and character driven, because the book kind of has a lot of moving parts going on and some are very character driven and some are very plot driven. It kind of takes a while for the sci-fi aspect to really click into the story and it almost lost me, because it's hard to tell where the story is going for a while. I think the concept of a modern day women, helping a 18th century man adapt to modern times is cool, but the story also has the sci-fi that is kind of like a different story. I like the ideas, I just think they could have blended together better, it was a little chopy with very long chapters that kind of jumped around a lot. I just think the plot kind a missed having a cohesive through point. I kind of felt like a few different ideas thrown together, that each kind of overtake the story at random unannounced times. I honeslty liked the book more because of the characters than the main story. There was a lot of lost potential that could have made the story great. I think it probably should have been two seperate books based on how things went. Overall I thought it was a very cleaver concept.

Content Warnings

sirpandacat's review against another edition

3.25

funny mysterious tense

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

mbwoconnor's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Time travel and espionage, plus a Victorian gentleman living in present day London. Add romance and trying to figure out who are the bad guys. Plus several diverse characters

Content Warnings

ky_q_xoxo's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This one really was a mixed bag for me. Started off so strong, lagged hard in the middle, but the ending almost made me cry.

Content Warnings

ettegoom's review against another edition

3.0

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A cute little spy/mystery romance.
I probably wouldn't have read it if I'd realised how much the second half focused on the romance.
I liked the concept behind the time machine and the ex-pats were lovely characters. The testing of the ex-pats was hilariously believable and i liked that there were several queer characters. The big reveal was... interesting, I'm not sure if i believed it though. I liked that the ending wasn't definitive, and left some hope that the main character wasn't just a patsy.
I was deeply disappointed by the photograph at the end. Gore looked NOTHING like what I'd imagined.

Content Warnings