Finished this ‘over hyped’ book last night. Am I nuts or do others feel the same? Love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

This was recommended to me as a five star book. The best book she’s read this year. Picking up this book I felt the weight, the need and the want to be impressed.

Blake Crouch is someone that comes to mind of someone that can write a good time travel or sci-fi novel. If you are going to talk about time travel, you have to be prepared, organized and have a heck of an editor.

The Ministry of Time was lacking all thee above but additionally a focus. Is this a sci-fi novel? Is this a day-to-day fiction/romance novel? Are we trying to bring to light social issues? Is this a spy novel? Good try to attempt to ‘do it all’, but instead we were left with a mess.

The overall pacing was atrocious. It was slow, nothing really happened. Gore’s timeline/POV was unnecessary in hindsight. I kept waiting for something to happen. The MC’s timeline was confusing. I swear I read every line, no skimming, yet I still felt I was missing pieces. Scenarios were revealed and I didn’t have the backstory.

The spicy scenes, grossed me out. Again, are we trying for romance or sci-fi? Too much detail for me and not what I wanted to read.

And finally, the writing. It was clunky. Way too many similes. Complex words added for the sake of being complex? Did someone check the thesaurus a few too many times? I found myself highlighting in my kindle to look up the definition of a word one too many times. I’m not ‘against’ leveraging the English language. I love reading and learning about words I’m not aware of. Yet, it was too often and oddly placed. It threw off the already bumpy flow. It all highlighted the lack of logical editing.

“I was a doll, with no more inner intelligence than a bottle of water.”

There was so much potential for this book. The author did actual research about Gore, who was a real person by the way. (Although not confirmed if there is a Time Machine and he was actually brought to the future.) I loved the author’s note. It was a wonderful surprise.

After writing this review, I feel compelled to change my star rating from 3 down to 2 stars. It not only didn’t live up to the hype by my friend and other reviewers, I feel a slight regret that I read it. (Aggressive statement, but I have a large TBR ha) I would not recommend. I am confused how this story gained so much traction.

Amazon Link – The Ministry of Time By: Kaliane Bradley

Stats: 284 pages – First published May 7, 2024