A review by cody_crumley
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

adventurous lighthearted slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.25

 

“Ideas have to cause problems before they cause solutions.” 

Dry British comedy, time traveling, romance, and a spy thriller all mixed together...might equal my most disappointing book this year already. Like the quote above from "The Ministry of Time" the idea of this book causes a lot of problems with me, but it does not cause any solutions. 

My first major problem with this book is the shelving of the Main Character (who we are never given a name for, which did not really lead to anything). I know that she is really just a vehicle for the time travel narrative, but she really just gets shoved to the side for Gore and their "romance". Which that romance was not really a romance out all. It came across as a obsession with someone due to proximity more than actual feelings. From Gore's side, it seems that there might be a tinge of racism with his feelings, him admitting to the fact that she was resemblance to the Inuit woman that he killed before getting taken towards the future (for him). I did not expect for her to be treated like an actual bridge. 

Next, I am someone who enjoys literary fiction, I don't always want it spelled out for me, nor do I want just basic phrases constantly used. Its okay to expand your vocabulary, but something that Kaliane Bradley did CONSTANTLY was turn everything into a soliloquy or analogy 
(Ex: “Holding me in his arms, the way that poems hold clauses.” or “he looked oddly formal, as if he was the sole person in serif font.”) I don't mind a fun phrase and I understand trying to not use the same repeated words over and over again, but when everything is something, then it becomes nothing. It starts to stick out more and more, eventually just making me roll my eyes

Finally, it feels like she is trying to much but does not want to commit to just one thing, which sadly brings everything down. Sometimes it is a BBC comedy, other times it is a Bond spy-thriller, or it tries to be Kate & Leopold, a fish out of water/time travel romance. It is not good at any of them, and together it just comes across as a uneven hodgepodge. With all of that, nothing really "happens" which is fine if you are telling this "fish out of water" trope time travel story through the mundane actions of everyday life, but not when you add on "spy-thriller" and "romance" to the genre list. Top that off with a rushed last 20% of a ending, and you get (at least in my opinion) a let down of a book.

Also a kinda related sidebar, but this did come across as "Author surrogate" type of fan fiction, which there is nothing wrong at all with that, but it felt kinda apparent more than most published works. Though if Stephanie Meyer can do it then why shouldn't Kaliane Bradley be able to.