Reviews with content warning for Murder - The Ministry of Time

Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

178 reviews

shiradfrankel's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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

Content Warnings

sarahholliday's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad 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: Complicated

I think there are several things to like about this book—the heartwarming relationships between the "expats," the often humorous results of walking, talking anachronisms in the modern era, the honest depiction of what it's like to become infatuated with someone.

But overall I think this needed a lot more editing. The story can't quite figure out what it wants to be—I'm all for blending genres, but I think it needs to be done with a bit more intention and finesse than happens here. Similarly, the writing feels inconsistent. Some passages, particularly the dialogue between the protagonist and Graham and the other expats, feel natural, but there are significant portions that feel very overwritten. I think the story could've been a solid 10-15 pages shorter if someone had gone after all the metaphors with a red pen.

Ultimately I'm just not sure The Ministry of Time really succeeds at any of the things it's trying to do, so it felt quite unsatisfying in the end.

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

jjyork's review against another edition

3.75

emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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

sarah_bookshelf's review against another edition

3.0

mysterious slow-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

I absolutely loved this to begin with, but as it went on (and on) I struggled to keep track of the plot. Not a lot happened for nearly 300 pages other than the main character being clueless and selfish - and the side characters being obviously fleshed out as wonderful people who we'd miss when something horrible happened to them. And then after the obvious plot twist, we didn't really get much clarity, nothing *really* happened or changed and it just ended. This book felt like it could have been a lot but got swept up in itself and didn't ever get to the point. I did really enjoy its sarcastic sense of humour, and I will keep an eye on this author.

Edited to add: having finished this, I have no idea why it is included in the Climate Fiction Prize longlist, am I missing something? There is the vaguest hint of this story taking place in a future where Bad Things have happened to the planet and things have somewhat changed, but this story is not in any way about that. It centres time travel, government bureaucracy and doomed romance. Nothing in the climate change realm.

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

toriwatson's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I was really excited for this novel’s premise/concept, but it honestly didn’t execute it in a satisfying way for me personally. It had lots of interesting things it was trying to do, but in the end seemed muddled. I didn’t really click with the MC, but I loved the historical expat characters- they redeemed the book for me in many ways. The author seemed to try to justify the MC at the end but it came a little too late for me, especially after the government spy plot stuff. The sci-fi aspects were very hit and miss, interesting but also didn’t make a lot of sense- maybe I just didn’t get it/understand all of it. I honestly wished I liked this book more, I love time travel stories so I am kinda disappointed.

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.

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