Reviews with content warning for Xenophobia - The Ministry of Time

Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

78 reviews

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

mimsyb's review against another edition

2.0

funny mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I adored the beginning of this book. I love the concept so much, I found the beginning engaging, and I really enjoyed the writing style. Consequently I will read Bradley's short stories, and an excellent sequel would make me increase this rating significantly. I love the cover. Unfortunately the book by itself was ultimately quite disappointing to me. The author described the book's take-away as

"we don't need time travel to change ourselves, look to the future, and make the future more beautiful."

I wish I agreed. Only the very last page addresses that, and I struggled to believe it given everything that had happened. What am I missing? The book left me feeling that

the future would stay bad or worsen, change is hard, and some people are doomed to failure.

Not true, but depressing.

Good: There is a lot of clever, humorous skewering of racist remarks and micro-aggressions the main character had experienced. The author uses a lot of fun vocabulary words and interesting descriptions. If the British slang, words drug from long gone historical eras, and arcane vocabulary get a little dense and sometimes ungoogle-able, or if a few descriptions didn't land--well, I want to see more of this style, so I can overlook that. I wish I hadn't googled vocab so much.

Detailed, frequently lustful descriptions of several people's bodies are rampant. That was especially frustrating given the general lack of character development. I kept wondering if the plot was building towards person x and y being in love, or x and z, or z and y, etc. ***Mood spoilers for the ending and very general allusions to plot in the rest of this review***

While one of those romances does suddenly happen

, we never seem to learn the things about these characters that the book teasingly hides from us-- things that would make the romances or friendships so much sweeter. In fact the MC acknowledges her lack of insight about the other characters numerous times; nothing changes.

Worse, I felt the events in the last 25% of the book really ruined any enjoyment of the romance because

the MC continues to treat her lover badly, never really reforms, and he understandably hates her and leaves her for it.

The very end of the book is

somewhat ambiguous and potentially hopeful

but I struggled to feel that a few vague paragraphs really offset the second half of the book. I felt unsatisfied and disappointed. The MC spent so much time discussing racism and the way that racialized people should or shouldn't act, but it was ultimately very hard to tell what her ultimate conclusions were or if she had changed as a result of her own self-flagellations. It reminded me of Katniss Everdeen's attitude at the end of the Hunger Games, which seemed problematic given that the MC, unlike Everdeen, recognizes she's made a lot of mistakes.

Of course it's a nuanced subject, the author doesn't necessarily owe us anything, the passages probably weren't written for white people to understand!, the MC was part of

a horrible system that bears a lot of blame

, and is a complex, flawed person. Perhaps I'm missing something. Ultimately it was confusing, very sad, and unsatisfying that the (at first) lovable MC is

morally gray and never really reforms

. That's how life is, but I just didn't want to read about that in fiction today, hence my rating.

Content Warnings

sage_perk's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Normally, I don't enjoy books that defy genre, but this book is incredible. The beginning and middle can be slow in places, but the rich character development and the witty dialogue make it worth it.

This was one of those books that I finished and didn't know how to move on. I literally felt bereft after the last page, like I was thrust back into our world from theirs, and I wasn't happy about it!

Content Warnings

seregelda's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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: Complicated

CW: blood, smoking, animal deaths, gore, r*pe, racism, death, genital slur, racial slur, murder, suicide mention, vomit, homophobia

Oh my goodness, twisty twisty and a sad-ish ending, but a good book nonetheless!

Content Warnings

moebrownie's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious slow-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: Yes

Content Warnings

martinemde's review against another edition

4.5

emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Loving, sad, and at moments dark. An examination of “what if” that is somehow able to make you laugh at the exact wrong times.

The excellent narration and consistent voices made the audiobook a special treat.

Content Warnings

ktunravels's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous funny mysterious 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

Loved this book. Great storytelling and great character construction. Speculative fiction. It takes a certain amount of charm and forethought to write about a time ‘just - little ahead in time’ and then rely on a tragic adventure in the past as a plot device. I want to read more about those horrible journeys into the frozen unknown in the name of empire (yuck). It also reminded me of Jasper Fforde, the way his characters pop out of the page and into your life.

Content Warnings

mayawildgoose's review against another edition

5.0

emotional hopeful mysterious tense fast-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: Complicated

Wild ride. I’m still a little confused but I loved it.

Content Warnings

clovetra's review against another edition

4.0

funny lighthearted mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

crazy i’m saying this about a book im giving a 4-star review but. i’m really surprised i didn’t like this more. i am super surprised it wasn’t a knockout for me. i think this won book of 2024 at my local bookstore. so tbf i had insanely high expectations. and most were delivered on!

i’ve gotta say the highlight(s) of this book are the expats. holy shit gore. i love gore. not only is he funny, but he is rugged and, get this, funny. he earns double funny because i love him. he is my pookie. so what he’s like 300 years older than me????? and margaret. oh my god pookie pie. someone bring this baddie to 2025 PLEASE

LET ME LEZ OUT WITH HER!!!!!

. the other expats were alright i guess… arthur had a small role but was still baby girl, and other than those three i didn’t care about any other expat. sue me. sorry i love gore and margaret too much to allow any other room in my heart.

the writing style of this book is fucking delectable. magnificent. beautiful. i truly cannot describe just how good this book is written linguistic-wise unless you’ve picked up this book. i don’t know what enamoured me but god damn did i love it!!!!

now on to what i didn’t really live laugh love…. the plot. now i don’t know what i was expecting after reading the blurb of this, but it certainly wasn’t what i read. ok sure yes i knew at some point MC and gore would be dating the blurb literally tells you that. but idk i expected more scifi!!!! this is tagged first and foremost scifi and there’s barely any. most of the focus is on the romance.

which is ok like i said gore can get it. but mannnn don’t mislead me!!! i was hoping for some more interesting things related to the time travelling! and ok yes i get the in-text reason is that MC isn’t a scientist and doesn’t understand the technical aspects but like!!!! your mc doesn’t have to get it!!!! you just have to have other characters be annoying about the physics and then have mc be lost in the convo or something like that. i mean at the very least the concepts related to their time travelling e.g. can they appear on CCTV, what happens if they catch a sickness from the modern world. like those parts were great!!!! the story just needed more of them. and not only more moments, but a better pacing with the actual plot. up until 60% of this book it fully felt like i was just reading a slice-of-live novel with hints of Something going on. and then all the action is crammed into the last 15% of the book and im annoyed because it seemed interesting!!! but it wasn’t given enough time to develop, so instead i had explanations of what was going on in the background whilst the mc was being a horndog thrown at me and then wow ok its over. like what were we doing the rest of the time????? not only was the plot non-existent, but the pacing of when The Plot was actually introduced was so random. i can imagine if someone is not able to simp over gore or project onto the mc they would hate this because nothing happens except “gore finds out about something that has happened after the 1850s and so he has to be given an explanation on it” but like. repeated 70 times. it’s cute ill admit, but without anything other than the romance or the comedy tying me to the story, i was left slightly disappointed. slightly.

because look, i had a good time. i had fun. i was invested. kind of. really i was only invested in the romance if im honest. but i think this concept has such potential!!!!! i just think the scifi aspect of this book was a letdown & the pacing of the main plot felt erratic.

in other news i wanted to let you all know even though gore is depicted as a young guy i could not stop picturing him as charles from the walking dead s1 game. was very jarring to my stubborn brain every time his Not Grey Hair was described.

that is all.

Content Warnings

annaekwan95's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

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