Book Review: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Time travel with a side of historical romance.
This book is much deeper than I initially expected it to be! This wasn't just a futuristic, wibbly-wobbly, time travel book. This was a very introspective, poetic novel that takes a common science fiction idea (time travel, in case that wasn't obvious) and really dives deep into it.
"I had always thought of joy as a shouting, flamboyant thing, that tossed breath into the sky like a ball. Instead it robbed me of my speech and my air. I was pinned in place by joy and I didn't know what to do."
The prose is really beautiful and poetic - it was a fairly quick read, but I often wanted to sit and savor some of those sentences, really living within the world that Kaliane Bradley wrote.
If you liked The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, you may like this book - past and present stories told in intertwining ways, where history collides. The two books have some similarities in the prose as well.
"Belief has very little to do with rationale. Why demand a map for uncharted territory?"
This was a really beautiful book that I savored every page of. It also wasn't a long read, which I appreciated. I'd definitely go back to this book again in the future.
Rating: ★★★★.5
Book Summary
- Title: The Ministry of Time
- Author: Kaliane Bradley
- Genre: Fiction, Science Fiction, Romance
- Who Should Read It? If you're interested in time travel historical romances, this might be for you.
Synopsis: In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.
She is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as “1847” or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.” But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.
Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.
An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks: What does it mean to defy history, when history is living in your house? Kaliane Bradley’s answer is a blazing, unforgettable testament to what we owe each other in a changing world.
