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anawalt's review against another edition
3.0
Not quite a three, but not a four. It felt like a slow build that quickly tumbled into an ending.
applegnreads's review
3.0
Not as good as the first ones. Her friend gets very irritating but I suppose that could come down to the fact that he is young and is supposed to be irritating.
chichi27's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
novelinsights's review against another edition
adventurous
reflective
medium-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? No
3.0
When reading the Wrinkle in Time quintet, I couldn't help but notice a sharp contrast between the first two books, which were very eccentric science fiction romps, and the last three books, which I can only describe as Christian time travel stories. I can't say I'll ever bother to read past Book 2 again, but of those latter books in the series, this one was by far the best. The writing seemed a little smoother and closer to the style of present day, while Book 4 felt very quickly paced and harder to get into. I also thought the story was more well-plotted and flowed better than both of the previous two installments. I did like the general premise of this one; I was disappointed that we were going back in time again rather than doing something more unique, like in the first two books, but I think if the third and fourth books were switched out for something else, I wouldn't have had an issue with it.
The book certainly is far from flawless, however. In this book, we've jumped significantly far ahead in time, because our protagonist is Meg's daughter. I got the sense when reading this that other books in another series have covered more of Polly's life and maybe also that of her siblings, because it felt fleshed out in a weird way, as though I was supposed to know more about the other people in her life than I actually did, but I was fine with this and didn't feel like I was missing anything vital to the story by not tracking down those books first. I did, however, feel that there were some minor discrepancies between the characters of this book and those of A Wrinkle in Time.I totally respect the idea that raising children is just as hard as a job taken on outside of the house, but I felt Meg was done a serious disservice when it turned out she had become a homemaker when her passion had always been mathematics. It's certainly realistic that people don't always have the courage or means to follow their passions, but I didn't understand why L'Engle would want to sell the protagonist of her most famous novel short like that. It was also hard to get that news from a conversation between Polly and her grandparents and not hear it from Meg herself, where we could maybe see some joy she'd taken from that path or perhaps some math she was still doing on her own. It seems like Meg was just discarded after the first few novels; others had treated her as incapable when she was the protagonist, so she became incapable herself. Polly felt like a much stronger protagonist, though I can't help but feel that this was due to some strange bias against Meg and not because of anything inherently wrong with her character. It was just disappointing.
I also felt Polly's grandparents (Meg's parents from the earlier novels) seemed too disbelieving in the time travel element of this story. They had been exposed to plenty of weird things in the previous novels, and one of the things I'd loved about them in the first book was how open they had been to the fantastical elements. It had been a refreshing change of pace when parents disbelieving their children was so common, and so it felt almost like they were different people when they so stubbornly fought against the fantastical elements here. Perhaps it was supposed to be indicative of people developing small-mindedness with age, but I didn't buy it. They stills seemed themselves in every other way.
I also didn't understand why Polly's grandfather didn't contribute more to the story. It was his tesseract technology that they believed to be causing the anomalies of the story, but even when he finally came to accept that the time travel stuff seemed to be real, he kept turning to the bishop to asked how it worked, when in reality, the bishop should have been asking him. The bishop had no reason to understand how it worked at all beyond intuition.
Another thing I found myself musing on partway through the book was the fact that just about every concept that made the first few books what they were disappeared by this point in the series. There were forces of evil surrounding the planet in A Wrinkle in Time--forces that I had fancied Meg would be fighting against for the rest of the series--and those forces were given a name and shape in the second book. They briefly came up in the third book (though the third book itself felt more like a fever dream than an actual story), but then the whole concept was dropped altogether from the series, and it transformed from a science fiction battle against the forces of evil to personal struggles with incidental time travel. I find it quite frustrating and wish I could strike all but the first two books from the record and ask L'Engle to go back to the drawing board and finish the series properly this time.
Anyway, I don't plan to pursue any of L'Engle's other series. It's clear the story she's most famous for was not actually indicative of the stuff she really wanted to be writing.
The book certainly is far from flawless, however. In this book, we've jumped significantly far ahead in time, because our protagonist is Meg's daughter. I got the sense when reading this that other books in another series have covered more of Polly's life and maybe also that of her siblings, because it felt fleshed out in a weird way, as though I was supposed to know more about the other people in her life than I actually did, but I was fine with this and didn't feel like I was missing anything vital to the story by not tracking down those books first. I did, however, feel that there were some minor discrepancies between the characters of this book and those of A Wrinkle in Time.
I also felt Polly's grandparents (Meg's parents from the earlier novels) seemed too disbelieving in the time travel element of this story. They had been exposed to plenty of weird things in the previous novels, and one of the things I'd loved about them in the first book was how open they had been to the fantastical elements. It had been a refreshing change of pace when parents disbelieving their children was so common, and so it felt almost like they were different people when they so stubbornly fought against the fantastical elements here. Perhaps it was supposed to be indicative of people developing small-mindedness with age, but I didn't buy it. They stills seemed themselves in every other way.
I also didn't understand why Polly's grandfather didn't contribute more to the story. It was his tesseract technology that they believed to be causing the anomalies of the story, but even when he finally came to accept that the time travel stuff seemed to be real, he kept turning to the bishop to asked how it worked, when in reality, the bishop should have been asking him. The bishop had no reason to understand how it worked at all beyond intuition.
Another thing I found myself musing on partway through the book was the fact that just about every concept that made the first few books what they were disappeared by this point in the series. There were forces of evil surrounding the planet in A Wrinkle in Time--forces that I had fancied Meg would be fighting against for the rest of the series--and those forces were given a name and shape in the second book. They briefly came up in the third book (though the third book itself felt more like a fever dream than an actual story), but then the whole concept was dropped altogether from the series, and it transformed from a science fiction battle against the forces of evil to personal struggles with incidental time travel. I find it quite frustrating and wish I could strike all but the first two books from the record and ask L'Engle to go back to the drawing board and finish the series properly this time.
Anyway, I don't plan to pursue any of L'Engle's other series. It's clear the story she's most famous for was not actually indicative of the stuff she really wanted to be writing.
maryellis_me's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
3.0
spiderelsa's review against another edition
3.5
I remember parts of this from childhood. I was much more devout back then, so I think I wasn't bothered by the instances where out of context christianity was tagged in for exposition.
I love that our heroine didn't end up with someone not good enough for her, whether an ecthros or someone from a different universe or a priest.
I'm gonna go find out more about what Meg has been up to. In all of this, she's why I'm still reading.
I love that our heroine didn't end up with someone not good enough for her, whether an ecthros or someone from a different universe or a priest.
I'm gonna go find out more about what Meg has been up to. In all of this, she's why I'm still reading.
thatokiebird's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
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? No
3.0
Happy to finally be finishing this series with An Acceptable Time, the fifth book in this series for middle school ages. It is certainly a series that is best read in order, however this book felt like the most standalone of the series. As it was written nearly 30 years after the first book in the series, it makes sense since its original audience will be older jaded adults and the author surely wanted to greet new audiences with this title.
It has all the time-traveling, magic sci-fi science elements of the previous books but with a mostly new set of characters. This time we follow Polly's journey, Meg and Calvin's (oldest?) daughter. She is staying with her aging grandparent's, Meg's parents, in their almost-a-character-in-itself house, which of course is steeped in its own peculiar brand of magic. Polly travels back 3,000 years, this time with new characters with a different set of conflicts and storyline.
I liked this book a lot better than the 4th book in the series, but not as much as the 1st or 3rd. It's well written as always, dialogue is good, and the story moves along at an okay pace. It probably would have been a lot better if it was more heavily edited with tangents and diverting plots cleaned up.
It has all the time-traveling, magic sci-fi science elements of the previous books but with a mostly new set of characters. This time we follow Polly's journey, Meg and Calvin's (oldest?) daughter. She is staying with her aging grandparent's, Meg's parents, in their almost-a-character-in-itself house, which of course is steeped in its own peculiar brand of magic. Polly travels back 3,000 years, this time with new characters with a different set of conflicts and storyline.
I liked this book a lot better than the 4th book in the series, but not as much as the 1st or 3rd. It's well written as always, dialogue is good, and the story moves along at an okay pace. It probably would have been a lot better if it was more heavily edited with tangents and diverting plots cleaned up.
melissa_who_reads's review against another edition
5.0
Once again, an enjoyable read from L'Engle this time about going back in time 3,000 years. The odd thing is the Murry grandparents are so weirded out by it when going back in time and traveling to odd destinations in time and space has been a family hallmark; and the implication that Calvin, Polly's father, would be especially freaked out is odd. However, I really did enjoy this one, and looking at the list of characters (family tree) in the back with the Austins and Murry/O'Keefe families I realized I had not paid much attention to Zachary Gray as a character at all -
katiereads24's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
slow-paced
4.5