May 11

May 11 The Ministry of Time

About the book

Author: Kaliane Bradley
Publisher: Avid Reader Press

More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.

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Bookshop.org (print) | Libro.fm (audio)

My Review

The Ministry of Time got a LOT of hype. The back of my advanced reader’s copy, which I received several months ago, said it was “already an international sensation, with rights sold in 17 languages and a TV adaptation in the pipeline after a 21-way auction.” It’s got an incredible lineup of blurbs, including from Eleanor Catton, Max Porter, and…Emily Henry.

Here’s the premise: Our unnamed narrator has been hired by a new branch of the government to live with, guide, and monitor an “expat” who was pulled from their home — the past. Our MC is assigned Lieutenant Graham Gore, an arctic explorer from the 1800s. And then they fall in love. (WOW.)

So, does it deliver on all that promise? I’ve seen mixed reviews, but as for me, I say yes — IF you go into it with the right expectations.

This book fits best in the literary fiction genre, given the interiority of the main character (although the end reads more like a sci-fi thriller). But it’s still doing a lot of different things at once — time travel, a romance plotline, history, a little dystopia, humor, not to mention themes like moving through the world as a white-passing Asian person, survivor’s guilt, and kind of growth required for a character to jump from a period of colonization to our present-day understanding of race and civil rights. So go into this book knowing that it’s not going to have the space to focus on any one of those things in depth. Also, time travel is HARD and full of plot holes by nature, so take that in stride. If you do, I think you’ll have a lot of fun with it.

Some have said this book tries to do too much and delivers on none of it. But I found it to be like the best kind of meal you make from whatever’s in your refrigerator — a ton of ingredients you love, not too much brain power required, and a tasty result in the end. Call it the literary beach read of the summer.