This was a great book! Unique and has real staying power. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you NetGalley and Avid Reader Press for this ARC!

I finished the book, but I wasn't totally pulled into the narrative behind the main character's experience. The ending felt abrupt and slightly unfulfilling.

The description of this book's plot was so intriguing! Unfortunately, the actual story left me a bit disappointed. It seemed the author was trying to do too many things at once, with multiple competing genres. I also found some of the word choices distracting since they didn't seem to flow naturally. The British humor and interesting world-building were my favorite parts, but ultimately I found it hard to get to the finish of this one.

I found this book to be wholly enjoyable and had a very quirky premise. The main character and Gores relationship evolved naturally and had many funny moments that I was sharing with my friends as I read it. I found the mystery at the end by complete surprise and I’m glad because sometimes I can tell the ending early on but not for this one. I’d recommend it to any sci-fi lover out there, such as those who enjoyed This is How You Lose A Time War.

Genre: Sci-Fi

Format: Audio

3.5🌟 - it was fine!

I really expected to be obsessed with this one, but it made me feel nothing 🫠. I think objectively the writing is good, but something about this was not for me!

3.75 stars

I really enjoyed this! I liked the idea of a government agency testing the bounds of time travel and the logic behind who they chose for test subjects. It makes sense and isn't something you see much of in time travel books. Those early days of figuring things out were probably very messy (as we see).

I loved the narrative voice! It's very unique and a compelling way to tell the story. It's first person past tense; our narrator knows what happens from the very beginning. I love that she isn't named. And I thought the challenging balance of governmental complicity and duty to resistance was well executed. It turned this story into more of a social commentary than just a thrilling time travel novel and I deeply appreciated that.

The characters are darling! Arthur and Graham and Maggie and the narrator were beautifully realized and individualized. I can't imagine the work that went into them to make each of them feel specific to their periods. I wanted to be friends with their group and just tuck them safely away.

Everything started to fall apart for me in the last 20%. It started to feel like a different story and I think that's partly due to the limits of the narration. The narrator knows what happens but is walking us through it as if for the first time. So there's not enough foreshadowing to make the last chunk feel cohesive. It gets chaotic and messy.

I'd still recommend this because I did truly enjoy it!

<i>Many thanks to NetGalley, Avid/Simon & Schuster, and the author for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.</i>

Unfortunately this book was not for my. I tried and made it to almost halfway through the book. But I just wasn't invested in the characters and the story was slow paced for me. I did really like the concept of the story though.

This was a delightful read. This is a book about the apocalypse written with levity. What if we shared a flat with a time traveling arctic explorer? And what if that is what was needed in order to save civilization? This story brings up so many questions I had never thought to consider and will spend a long time pondering them.

The Ministry of Time was a unique read that started a little slowly for me. I would have enjoyed learning more after the ending, but overall this was a great book that I may read again to catch things I missed. The author, Kaliane Bradley, writes the most beautiful descriptions. I look forward to reading more.

I was unfortunately unable to finish this book in time due to a serious health issue, but I was incredibly, incredibly sad that I wasn’t able to do so. Because I liked the first several chapters so much — the quirky premise, the time travel/magical realism, the banter between the characters, and the moral questions the book posed from the beginning, I actually purchased a copy so that I could finish reading it on my own time. Absolutely delightful, thought-provoking, and gut-wrenching all at the same time. Bardley’s book is simply a masterpiece and I very much hope to see her more in the future!

2.5 stars

I loved the premise of this one but not the implementation- it just was too slow. It could have been edited down a fair amount.

The Ministry of Time is an incredibly fun combination of science fiction, historical fiction, and romance. The characters, though difficult to understand at times are intriguing and the plot includes just enough variety to keep a reader hooked til the end.

I think this is actually more of a 2.5, but I’m rounding up because I loved the backstory of why the book was written (the author’s unhinged obsession with a daguerreotype of a long-dead, very handsome Arctic explorer) and really, really loved the first third or so where Commander Gore and his fellow expats are exposed to modern life. Muppets! Scooters! Spotify! So funny and smart - I had the highest hopes for where this was going…

But then it lost me. The main character was annoying. The love story felt forced and weird. The spy/traitor business was very confusing. The big twisty surprise about one of the characters was very lame. It just kind of went off the rails trying to be too many things and lost all of the fun of the first part.

Also: I listened to some sections of this as an audiobook and have to say the narrator was not my favorite - the girl voice parts were mumbled and hard to understand and the boy voice parts sounded like when me and my friends imitate our husbands saying something dumb. You have a competent male narrator already booked - use him for the boy voices! I am very happy I didn’t listen to any of the sex scenes on audio bc that would have been horrific.

This was Truman Show meets Back To the Future. There was an unexpected connection I wasn't expecting between the main characters, which brought a depth to the story.

I like how it touches on the themes of finding oneself and immigration.

The book was good! I don't usually read sci-fi but it was decently paced and I liked the development of the relationship between our two main characters. I did feel like some parts were unnecessary and over-explained but it was easy to overlook.

The Ministry of Time is an interesting cli-fi novel. Set on the premise of bringing back historical figures to life, the protagonist brings back an explorer from a polar expedition. This brings to light several issues about climate change and the reality of the dire situation. It's captivating writing on a topic that is not normally addressed in such a manner.

This book had a very interesting and unique premise, which is what drew me in. I mostly enjoyed the read, but it did feel a bit long. Went into this expecting to not be able to put it down, but I never felt like it hooked me and it lost me at some points. However, still thought it was good and the premise saved it for me. Loved the bureaucratic drama aspect and wish there had been more of that.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
I LOVED the premise of this— expats from another time? Learning about the modern world as adults with no prior concept of it? Fascinating.

The narrative got a bit complicated with extra characters and additional time travel confusion and conspiracies and I got kind of lost at about two-thirds. The complication detracted from the main plotline but, despite the confusion, the unique and thrilling premise is worth a recommendation.

I really enjoyed this strange little book and it's melancholy, slow-paced memoir-like story of heartache and sadness and figuring out who you are, with a dash of fan fiction-y alternate timeline for a real arctic explorer.

I think the blurb for this one does it a disservice, while yes - sure, it is a spy thriller and time travel romance and workplace comedy. Those words, either stand-alone or in such a string together, are genres in their own rights that feel very different than what this is. This is much more slice-of-life, with a fuzzy narrator who feels ambiguous and far-away and doesn’t come into focus until the very end. It’s much more a string of vignettes to make up a memoir, with an mournful and smudgy air throughout that colors much of the story. The ‘expats’ are the most vibrant aspects of this story and a fun reminder and exploration that people throughout history have always been complex, full humans and not just stereotypes or caricatures of eras that we may think of.

It’s also a story that won’t follow the typical flow and pacing that many will want. I like slow, slice of life things and I even found myself questioning where this was going just over half way through. But this is one of the those books where the last 1/4 really threads and ties the entire first 3/4 together and brings new light to all of it. While I really enjoyed that, I can see why others might not.

I like a lot of the topics being illustrated and brought up throughout - the immigrant experience in Britain (and the complex and individual experiences of all immigrants or marginalized groups), trauma - experienced or inherited, country and empire and fascism, the ways in which history is made or told, survivors guilt, and more.

I was intimidated by this book for a long time. Speculative fiction hasn’t really worked for me in the past. But the author’s note helped a ton and crystallized the plot for me.

Basically, “The Ministry of Time” is based on the premise of, “what if a polar explorer from the 1840s was your roommate?” In the not too distant future, time travel is real — and government regulated, of course. Our protagonist is a civil servant who works for the bureaucracy in charge of time travel, the Ministry of Time. She is a bridge, someone who is assigned a time traveler from the past — an 1840s polar explorer, and it’s her job to help him adjust to this world.

This book also has elements of a spy thriller which created some heart-racing scenes. It’s a very quirky read. It feels impossible to predict who will vibe with it, but if you’re looking for something different, “The Ministry of Time” is a great choice.

So much of this book is genuinely FUNNY, and I feel like that is very hard to pull off. Especially for a quirky book. Sometimes they feel so try-hard. The humor in “The Ministry of Time” is really well done. It’s also a thought-provoking book and would be a fantastic choice for a book club.