Reviews with content warning for Xenophobia - The Ministry of Time

Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

78 reviews

rnbhargava's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense 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

I really enjoyed this book. The pacing is mostly quite well done. The characters are wonderful and there’s a lot of diversity in the cast. My only gripe is that the absolute ending of the main driving plot feels a bit rushed thus slightly anticlimactic. I even really like the denouement. Overall, this book is highly recommended

Content Warnings

rachaelwho's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The beginning was rough going for me, and if I had something else to read I may have given up. For the whole first half I kept thinking, "this is for people who like the Austens, which is really, really not me." Once I got into it, around 60%, I was REALLY into it. Author has some interesting thoughts about empire, decolonizing the mind, and what the future might hold, that I wish were given just a little more room to walk around, and distributed more evenly.

Content Warnings

rrubin97's review against another edition

1.75

challenging mysterious slow-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 am not sure why I just didn’t DNF it. The main characters were all annoying and obtuse. The author is very wordy. The whole thing made no sense in the end and sci fi is fine but she didn’t have rules around it just we don’t understand how it works so trust the narrator which is frustrating

Content Warnings

seshat59's review against another edition

3.5

dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The Ministry of Time is slow paced, meandering between plot points with endless rumination and contemplative asides. The editor’s blurb I cursorily scanned promised a time traveling romance, and that’s not what this. Not even close. That is one, small facet of the plot herein, but I wouldn’t go into this looking for an Outlander story told in reverse. Instead, you get a very complex, morally gray quandary of time travel, government machinations, and one’s complicity within institutionalized power.

The plot, briefly: Our unnamed, first person narrator is half-Cambodian British, half-white British and a civil servant from the language department who gets a promotion to the new Time Ministry. The British government has miraculously learned to time travel in the not so distant future, and they’ve pulled several individuals from their time stream at the moment they were nearing death. After being nursed back to help and thoroughly traumatized, these time refugees, now expats are being monitored and studied to judge how time travel affects the human body in the long term and how it affects the modern time stream / universe. Our protagonist is to be the bridge between one expat, Lieutenant Graham Gore of a failed 1848 Arctic exploration mission and the Ministry. She must live with and report (i.e. spy on) his progress. This leads to obsession and romantic feelings, etc.

I found the motley of expat characters fascinating, and they had an excellent camaraderie. Our main character keeps herself at a distance, from everyone and from the reader too. She is very guarded, as reflects her generational trauma with her mother that fled as a refugee from Cambodia and her choice of how to manage her intergenerational scars. As a result, she has aligned herself with the big, bad government with few qualms. She believes in the mission. Or at least in Gore. She is not very likable as a narrator, but she is realistic and incredibly flawed. I appreciated that about how the author chose to portray her. All those gray areas make for interesting characters.

The genres are mixed, blending sci-fi, spy thriller, and lit fic. The romance is a subplot, at most. There are a lot of complex themes throughout, generational trauma and institutionalized racism included as well as the nature of institutionalized power. I could really appreciate how the author wove everything together in the end, but I don’t feel she answered any objective questions to what consequences there were to time traveling. I have some follow up questions still, even with certain reveals from a certain character towards the end.

The pacing is rather slow going, particularly at the start. Things pick up at 60% or so, and I enjoyed the twists and turns and consequences to actions that result. Overall, this is an intelligent book, but I wouldn’t recommend to it to all readers. One must be in the mood to tackle the superfluous effusion of metaphors and similes as well as those complex asides.

It’s worth noting Graham Gore is a real, historic figure—and you can google his extant daguerreotype, and he is… a realistic-looking person. But, make sure you look him up so you know what you should be imagining.

Content Warnings

asymmetricwhale's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative mysterious reflective sad tense 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

nebulous_tide's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

The time travel in this book makes little sense. But that's okay, because it's simply a device to reach the point, which is less about time travel and more about people.

There are some very well-presented insights into culture and cultural transition. Some of my favourite parts of this book were when past and present attitudes were compared.

The pace was a bit off in the middle - lots of rehashing the same ground. But the end made up for it. A solid 4/5.

Content Warnings

kelly_e's review against another edition

2.5

adventurous informative 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

Title: The Ministry of Time
Author: Kaliane Bradley
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: 2.50
Pub Date: May 7, 2024

I received a complimentary eARC from Simon & Schuster Canada via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. #Gifted

T H R E E • W O R D S

Creative • Clunky • Predictable

📖 S Y N O P S I S

A civil servant starts working as a 'bridge' - a liaison, helpmeet and housemate - in an experimental project that brings expatriates from the past into the twenty-first century. This is a science-fiction story.

In a London safehouse in the 2020s, a disorientated Victorian polar explorer chain-smokes while listening to Spotify and learning about political correctness. This is a comedy.

During a long, sultry summer - as the shadows around them grow long and dangerous - two people fall in love, against all odds. This is a romance.

💭 T H O U G H T S

The Ministry of Time was one of my most anticipated 2024 releases. The premise sounded fantastic, unlike anything I'd read before. I certainly had high hopes when I was gifted an ARC, and even more so after it was announced as a GMA bookclub selection. I definitely couldn't avoid all of the hype surrounding this one.

Unlike some other reviews, I thought it started really strongly. I was interested and the concept was fascinating. However, the tone and direction completely shifted several times, especially in the final third, making it feel like a completely different book and story each time. I believe I'd have liked it more if it had kept the same trajectory as the beginning and if I'd gotten to spend more time with each of the characters rather than focusing primarily on one.

Equal parts time travel, romance, and spy thriller, this novel tries to do a lot and really ended up not doing anything at all. It needed more character development, more editing, and more cohesiveness. The lack of character depth, made it hard to believe the romance. With very little direction in the writing, from one page to the next, I often felt like pieces of the story were missing.

There is a lot of social commentary sprinkled into this story. From colonialism and racism to power and sexuality to climate change and corruption, the author probably should have picked a couple areas to focus on rather than trying to do it all. It convolutes the actual story and maybe that was the author's intent. It just didn't work for me.

A criticism I have seen is that the middle is bogged down with historical details. I, however, liked learning about the expedition and Graham's life. Given his character is based on a real person, I think it was necessary to include these details in order to give the reader context. It was also interesting take on seeing this early explorer in the present day.

The Ministry of Time had all of the right ingredients, yet they didn't come together in a way that worked. I have to commend the marketing team as they have done their jobs in promoting this book and I have no doubts many people will love it. The execution just wasn't there to make this book a stand out for me. My opinion is definitely the unpopular one, so I would say give it a shot if it's something that interests you. I'd definitely be curious to read something else written by Kaliane Bradley in the future.

📚 R E A D • I F • Y O U • L I K E
• fancy language
• stories that don't fit into a box

⚠️ CW: death, grief, violence, gun violence, war, murder, blood, injury/injury detail, cannibalism, colonization, genocide, racism, racial slurs, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, misogyny, sexual content, drug use, alcohol, cursing

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"If you ever fall in love, you’ll be a person who was in love for the rest of your life."

"It can get better, but you must allow yourself to imagine a world in which you are better."

"Forgiveness and hope are miracles. They let you change your life. They are time travel."

Content Warnings