The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley / Review 

I'm happy that you chose that part of the book to read and highlight - a part of it that really demonstrates a painful letdown and how the wish fulfillment aspect of time travel is, at best, a double edged sword.

I read and enjoyed The Ministry of Time but maybe not quite as much as you did. It started to be less compelling for me about halfway through, although I thought the way she handled the love story was very well done. Some of the speculative aspects of the story didn’t really hold together for me, and I felt it could have been a better, tighter novel with more careful editing. But it’s a fascinating premise and an intriguing story and I am glad I read it. And many thanks for showing us some of the historical underpinnings! Always appreciated!

Thought it sounded a great idea for a novel but reading it was like wading through treacle. I forced myself to finish it.

I truly loved, loved this novel. Clever, smart, intriguing. Hope it's a movie someday. I read it twice, first time I had some confusion, time travel etc second time I fell into the book. I had to read Time Traveler's Wife twice also.

Beautiful review! I loved it! I went into it without knowing about the hype and came back to it ( after seeing it in Obamas list lol) I listened to the audio version which was magnificent. I plan on reading the hard copy as well. I think this was an easy 5 star of 2024 for me.

***SPOILERS*** I basically agree with your review. I enjoyed reading this book, the characters, tones and different styles didn't bother me and was a rather enjoyable read. I ended up underwhelmed by the ending and lack of coherent motivations of the characters and the ministry itself. In fact, the whole concept of the expats and their importance to the ministry was never resolved in my opinion. I felt as if the whole time travel set up existed to involve interesting characters and their interactions with the modern world, but beyond that they didn't have much presence in the conclusion of the story. It starts towards the end to reach at ideas of a "multiverse" or "timelines" but never fully commits to any ideas. Just as the motivations of The Brigadier and the Ministry itself were equally unclear. As I said overall I did enjoy the read and characters but felt it left us unsatisfied with the larger implications and concepts of the story which served as more of a setting for our characters rather than a thought provoking premise to be mined for the more existential and science fictional concepts one might expect going into this book.

Thanks for the review. I had been wary of the hype around this as I've read a couple of hyped books lately that were somewhat average. I now know to wait until actual reader reviews come out rather than from marketing departments. ETA: Thanks for showing the memorial for the Orpheus which happened near where I grew up. Its a pretty well-known ship wreck on a bar that even now is not for the faint-hearted.

Thanks for the great review Eric - I especially enjoyed the “field trip” part! I am so glad to hear that you enjoyed the book since I bought it recently but haven’t started it yet. It’s encouraging to hear a positive review from someone whose opinion I respect. I am going to move it up in my TBR queue! (P.S. Heading to Maine in a week for some fun, food and beautiful scenery! Stern Men by Elizabeth Gilbert will be my vacation read since it takes place in Maine and sounds fun and quirky!) 😍

I love reading novels that are set where I am at the time! I always go on vacation with a book set there so I can explore the sites in the book in real-time, also in my hometown or wherever I used to live in the past. Nice video concept Eric 📚📖💙

Loved your narration while u showed us the site. I don’t think I will read the book. I know it’s buzzing everywhere and I like sci fi but I’m not a huge fan of time travel books. The only two I read and liked where « the time travelers wife « and « wrong place , wrong time ». Thanks a lot for the review. I love your channel and your reviews

Thanks for this review Eric! I’d been a bit on the fence about reading this one, but think you’ve convinced me!

I’m bummed 🙈 because I feel maybe I have bad taste if i didn’t like it as you and those many great writers, although I started the book hoping to love it. I almost couldn’t finish it, mainly because of the convoluted themes you mention, that never felt tied up and balanced to me. I found the tone clumsy, with a bit silly dialogues, nonsense metaphors, loosey timey-wimey explanations, and why is smoking described constantly with such detail? It goes beyond being a Graham’s trait. I understand fiction sometimes demands a bit of suspension of disbelief, but I found this too much from the very beginning - why would the ministry choose to pair a XIX man with a modern woman to live together alone? This could be very stressing for a person from that century and it would took more than a couple of weeks to be so nonchalant about all things XXI-century (this applies to all expats and their ‘nannies’, in fact). And with no surveillance at all, outside gubernamental quarters? I learnt later that this was an expanded fan fiction inspired by the tv show The Terror, which if it’s true sounds weird to me too. I suppose this is an example of genius marketing (as everyone is buying and reading it), and terrible marketing (maybe it should have been more clearly labelled as a romance novel+historic diary mix than a literary-high concept-adventurous-comedy fantasy, and some readers like me wouldn’t be so puzzled). Maybe the Ministry has access to another version with more Margaret and less main couple!

Thanks for the review and field trip Eric!! I was considering buying it but I couldn’t decide

You need to go on more field trips for us! I enjoy visiting locations used in books I've read. If I ever get to London, I want to visit the Greenwich Park, where a key scene in Conrad's The Secret Agent takes place.

I'm really interested in this book. It seems such a interesting mix of things that interest me but don't usually go together, which as you say could've gone very wrong, so glad to hear it seems to have pulled it off. I for some reason love reading about sailing adventures gone wrong, and I first became interested in the Franklin expedition by the ballad about it, known both as Lady Franklin's Lament or The Ballad of Lord Franklin. I read a fictionalized biography of Franklin called The Discovery of Slowness by Sten Nadolny, which gives the story of his life and exploits but also focuses a lot on his having had processing speed issues (as in, he was a very slow thinker to the point of being thought a dullard in his childhood and how he compensated for it and/or found it to be a strength) hence the title. It was interesting if you're interested in Franklin. His wife was also a compelling woman in her own right.

I loved this book it hooked me from the first pages. I usually detest overhyped books like the CoHo books ! Thanks for the review

I was so excited to read this book, but I didn’t find it as successful as you did. It tried to be too many things-spy thriller, workplace comedy, time travel, romance-and didn’t do them well IMO. I didn’t get enough sense of the characters to really connect with them. While there were some parts of the book I enjoyed, overall It was just okay and ended up being my biggest disappointment of last month.

I got stuck a third of the way through so am going to try the Audible version.

Loved to see the field trips to locations in the book in your review but unfortunately for me this book was a pretty mixed expect. It started so strong for me personally. Fun, voicey, and I actually appreciated that the author doesn't try to explain the tech. She actually mentions in the author's note that she intentionally over describes things the narrator is interested in (Margaret and Gore) and under describes things she's uninterested in, like the tech and much of the day to day of the ministry. I even forgave the disregard for how risky it might be to bring so many "ex-pats" from before the eradication of smallpox to our near future. But many of the reviews i had seen were mixed so I kept wondering where or how a book with such a strong start would fall apart and for me personally the last 30% didn't really coalesce around one or two central themes like I had hoped it would. I also felt that learning the Franklin expedition and particularly Gore were real and not imagined variations on real expeditions made the book feel uncomfortable like Real Person Fanfiction. I'm glad you really enjoyed the time travel themes! But many of those felt more retreads of other time travel media I have consumed for me. I thought the threads around colonialism, inherited trauma, being refugees and marginalized identities were much more interesting and i wish the author had coalesced those into something more central in the end. Thanks for posting you review!

I read the book and I don't have the same feelings. The title is similar to a Spanish series and the books reminds me of Spanish serie, the concepts of the Ministry of time, and outlander

I love JCO as you do what do you think about my favorite Soltice

❤

Ooooof. While the book is certainly being hyped up everywhere by influencers, for the first time, Eric, it appears you yourself are not fully convinced about you liking this book yet.

Same name and concept of an excellent Spanish tv series (20015-2020) written by the Olivares brothers. Excellent production, plots and performances, not to speak of the art direction. I am afraid that the author’ of the book may have profited and taken advantage of El ministerio del tiempo.😮 Dreadful and little original…