Reviews with content warning for Slavery - Ministry of Time

Reviews tagging 'Slavery'

Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

76 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

alanaefarrell's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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

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

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

booksandbujos's review against another edition

2.75

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

This book was sci-fi according to Goodreads, but I agree more with storygraph and classifying this as a romance. The parts of this that is sci-fi is really only the time travel and that is soo not the focus of this book. It is the tool to bring Graham to the time the story takes place, but doesn’t really come in to most of the plot aside from that. In reality this book is about our nameless narrator falling in love with Graham, though I honestly never felt the chemistry between them. Our narrator says that she finds him attractive and he does a few nice things for her, but those alone do not a romance make. And then the ending felt too rushed. Like that was the interesting part. That is where the time travel and the mystery of this novel really come in, but we’ve already spent 80% of this book on a relationship with no chemistry so I’m only given like 50-75 pages of intrigue and time travel and spy antics and then the book ends and I am left with so many questions, but not in a good way.

Content Warnings

alisonvh's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous funny 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

This book was fine. I doubt it’s anything that will stick with me for long, but it was a fun read. At times the pacing seemed to drag a little, but I did enjoy watching the MC slowly realize the Ministry might not have the best intentions.

Content Warnings

fanchera's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

fishreads's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous hopeful reflective 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: Complicated

A wonderfully, poetically written story about love, longing, and introspection.

An intriguing debut novel, with obvious self insterts by the author and an unusual obsession with an obscure Arctic explorer (but who am I to judge anyone’s obsessions?). This was the second book I reserved at the library, and I had to wait a month to get my hands on it. (I'm still waiting in line for the first one.) Although I can’t remember why I placed the reservation, it must have been because this novel was voted Readers' Favorite Science Fiction at the 2024 Goodreads Choice Awards.

My point is that, in terms of sci-fi, I would classify this novel as "sci-fi light." It didn’t exactly fulfill my sci-fi cravings.

Still, I found myself mesmerized by the unusual metaphors and the quiet longing between the two main characters, although I wouldn't exactly call it a romance either. What I appreciated most about this story weren’t the advertised themes of romance and sci-fi, but the careful examination of contemporary issues like the modern workplace and present-day racism, which I found quite insightful.

This wasn’t the perfect story, and I feel slightly melancholic about that because it seems like the author was so close to writing a truly poignant one.

Content Warnings

eadeeeman's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

unfiltered_fiction's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-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 loved this book. The wry narrative style had me instantly hooked, and the infinitely varied, complex characters soon drew me in even deeper. The author shows immense dexterity in handling the tonal slalom between bloody and brutal scenes with moments of aching tenderness. The writing does leave the reader to put in some work; occasionally I found sections hard to follow, as the author leaves a fair few things off the page as ambiguous or unresolved. Those choices do make sense against the wider narrative approach and thematic exploration of truth and immutability, but this was a minor drawback for me as I find inference in fiction tricky to follow. Overall, this is a book rich in emotion, excitement and provocation; I'll sit for a good long while with the line that "It can get better, but you must allow yourself to imagine a world in which you are better."

Content Warnings

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