The Ministry of Time REALLY surprised me - I didn’t know what to expect by this description but I was deeply infatuated with this book and story. Ugh! I want to go back and read it again and have new stories fill the pages. I’m amazed that the author was able to give us so much in these pages - building the world and so many unique characters with unique POVs that remained so true to themselves throughout. There were some details that I found a little confusing and I wish the ending was more fleshed out because it felt like we were quickly gaining momentum to a final interaction that passed by in the blink of an eye.

The central relationship really made me fall in love with this story - thank you the NetGalley and Avid Reader Press for the ARC!

Many thanks to Netgalley and publishers for providing my review copy.

I wanted to love this but unfortunately it was not for me. I felt the specific vocabulary used throughout removed me from the story because I didn’t exactly know the meaning for many of the word choices. Maybe that’s a me problem.

I truly found the plot idea to be wonderful and coming off a fresh rewatch of Netflix’s Dark, I enjoyed making comparisons. I’m sure many time travel stories use the same tropes and mechanisms but I liked finding many similarities.

I found the book to be just okay, but it definitely had a few good moments.

If you’re looking for something fresh and interesting, this might be for you.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley was a wonderfully, surprising 5-star read for me!! We have romance, time travel, fantasy, and roller coaster type thriller elements all beautifully woven into this book. The characters are fantastically written & Bradley handled the historical element of this book superbly. Love, love, love this book!!

Thank you NetGalley & Avid Reader Press for an ARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Time-travel romances are often a fantasy of knowledge: Someone ventures back into history and dazzles the rubes by understanding germ theory, or else a historical figure is brought forward and gapes at the marvels of present-day technology. They can also be fantasies of power, as Kaliane Bradley’s THE MINISTRY OF TIME (Avid Reader Press, 339 pp., $28.99) makes clear.

When the Arctic explorer Cmdr. Graham Gore is hauled into the 21st century along with a handful of other expats, their government handlers — bridges, as they’re called — are granted an extraordinary amount of control. Bridges are not only responsible for explaining modernity, they also share quarters with their expats, monitoring their bodily functions, mental health, internet searches, geographic movements and political adjustments.

But of course, when you have two strangers with secrets trapped in a house together, someone’s bound to ruin it by falling in love.

Gore’s bridge and eventual lover is a protagonist whose name we never learn, like the second Mrs. de Winter from “Rebecca,” or the narrator of R.F. Kuang’s “Babel.” Bradley’s story blends the claustrophobic passion of the one with the bloody anticolonial critique of the other. It’s a bold, uneasy romance that defines history as both something we make, and something that makes us. We are implicated — in every sense of the word — in the events of our particular era. Or, as Gore’s bridge puts it, “If you ever fall in love, you’ll be a person who was in love for the rest of your life.”

this book made me feel like i was on a roller coaster. the main plot alone probably wouldn't have caught my attention if it wasn't for the subtle, slowly forming romance and tension between the two main characters. I loved Graham. I knew from the start i was going to love him, he was so effortlessly charming, sweet and funny, and the more i got to know him, the more i found to love. he cares about people, he takes care of his own, he's independent and confident without being arrogant, and he's way smarter than he lets on. i was giddy and positively charmed by his shyness, his blushing and his dimples. i loved watching their relationship evolve, at first i wasn't sure anything was going to happen but the ride was so full of delicious tension and yearning (from the main girl's perspective) that it became so much more rewarding when something finally happened between them. i really liked the twist near the end, it gave me some serious dark vibes, but it also felt a little rushed and i wish we got to explore more of it. i also felt bothered by the way it ended, it was kind of an open ending and it felt very unsatisfying after all the revelations and the climax of the story. it didn't slip my attention that we never get the name our main girl, she's always referred to as "the bridge" and as "little cat" by graham (which i thought was ridiculously adorable). and I was really surprised when i found out graham was a real person, it made me want to find out more about the story and appreciate the way the author wove it into the book a lot more.

Thank you to Netgalley and Avid Reader Press for the e-book arc of this. All thoughts and feelings that I have expressed are my own.

I'm not going to lie, I have no idea how to properly review this book. It was a lot. A lot of characters. A lot going on. Some romance. Plot twists. It just felt like a lot dumped into a book, but then also not a lot happened until the last 15ish%.

This was OK. I am sure it will appeal ore to people who love SciFi/fantasy but ven I enjoyed it. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC!!

One of the best books I've read in a long time. The best way I can think to describe The Ministry of Time is that it's like what would happen if John Le Carre decided to write a sci-fi novel. It's a brilliant mish mosh of sci-fi, spy thriller, and literary fiction with beautiful writing, strong characterization, and fantastic dialogue. In another writer's hands, some of the thematic elements (the link between expats from history and expats/immigrants from other countries for example) could have been presented in a heavy-handed and didactic manner, but that certainly wasn't the case here. Highly recommended!

I loved this book. The premise was so interesting and the writing was beautiful, full of emotion and metaphors! The characters were fascinating and I loved the historical aspect. I would definitely give this novel a 5 star rating and can’t wait to read more of Bradley’s work in the future!

From the title to the plot, there’s very little original about Kaliane Bradley’s new novel The Ministry of Time. But originality is not what this charming debut has to offer.

https://bookandfilmglobe.com/fiction/book-review-the-ministry-of-time/

Many thanks to NetGalley and Avid Reader Press for providing me with an eARC of The Ministry of Time in exchange for my honest review!

A charming, romantic, and meditative ride is what I was able to enjoy here in The Ministry of Time by debut novelist Kaliane Bradley. To be honest, I did think this would be a little more of a timey-wimey adventure, but that's really not what this is aiming for. Thankfully, I was able to adjust my expectations as the book progressed and settle into our unnamed MC's world as she works for her eponymous Ministry and builds a close bond with Commander Graham Gore, who'd been plucked right out of an ill-fated Arctic expedition in the 1800s. They've got a lovely little dynamic that reaches my heart and elicits some laughs from me. Now, this book does try to wrestle with plenty of themes, and there are points where I can feel it stretching itself too thin. But I still appreciate what it's going for as it covers generational trauma, passing while being biracial, colonialism, queer identity, the evolution of our social consciousness, the ways in which we can become complicit with human rights violations and fascism, and climate change and the great impact that humankind has had on it. And when the ending arrives, it leaves me on a fairly hopeful note that feels appropriate for this journey.

Overall, I'm officially rating The Ministry of Time 3.75 out of 5 stars, which I'm rounding up to 4 stars. I'm looking forward to whatever Bradley pens next.

Thank you to Netgalley for the copy.
In the near future time travel has been discovered and the government is gathering “expats” from across history to establish if time travel is possible and the effects it will have on the body, mind, and time.
Interesting concept but I wish there was more adventure and time travel and spying. I was not captivated by the love story aspect of the book.

- What an inventive, emotional, and thought provoking book THE MINISTRY OF TIME is.
- This book is what I would call literary sci-fi, which is one of my favorite genre mashups. It’s also quite heavily character focused, with most of the action happening in the last third of the book.
- Despite my usual love of plot-heavy books, I was immediately drawn into the story of our unnamed narrator and her displaced-from-time charge.
- It’s easy to see how much research Bradley put into this book, but it never loses the intense emotion amid the historical tidbits.
- I don’t even have the space to touch on the elements of race, survivor’s guilt, and of catching someone up on centuries of history. There is so much going on in this book and I’m going to be thinking about all the pieces of it for a long time to come.

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this book. Honestly I became a little confused with so many characters and timelines. Overall I enjoyed it though.

Wonderful time travel story encompassing history, humor, romance and mystery. Such a creative, well written, and interesting novel. I can’t wait to see what Kaliane Bradley writes next! Thank you NetGalley for providing the ARC.

Great pacing and great development for the characters. I was heavily invested in the plot and descriptive settings.

I really think Bradley had an interesting idea with this; the concept and execution of time travel in this futuristic (albeit, not that futuristic) was really interesting and I enjoyed how it was explained within the novel. Our two main characters were also really interesting and I think the addition of a romance made this sci-fi novel a little different than what I typically read! That being said however, I feel like this was a pretty mid book and my main point of contention is really with our love interest Graham (who is also referred to as 1847 (the year he comes from)). And given that he does come from a very obviously imperialist and colonialist time, I just could not believe in him as a character or as a love interest. Our main character is assigned to him as a glorified babysitter. She lives with him, observes him and teaches him about the world as an authority in a way so tell me why a man from 100 years ago would be so feminist, not homophobic and just be an overall stand up guy? I completely get that this was supposed to be fun and "not real" but it was so hard not to roll my eyes as how unrealistic it felt. Bradley does discuss racism, classism, sexism and other topics, but they are not explored in depth enough for what I believe a navy commander in 1800s would need. And then in the last 20% of the novel, it suddenly turns into a wild spy thriller??? Overall, I think this was a good debut and based on the writing and themes, I think Bradley will be an author I will look for in the future!

oh my goodness :')
I often hear books described as "ambitious" without much explanation as to what that really means. So when I tell you that this book was SO ambitious, know that it attempted to do a lot, and wasn't necessarily entirely successful. I don't know if this is pitched correctly, although I don't know how it could be. it's romantic and political and reflective and ACTION-PACKED. oh, and there's time travel, which always complicates things and can ruin a book if you spend too much time thinking about how it actually works.
all that being said, I don't feel comfortable calling this a perfect book and wouldn't claim (in the slightest) to completely understand everything that happened. but I LOVED it. I loved Kaliane Bradley's writing style and I loved piecing together what she was trying to do, even if it slightly missed the mark for me at times. I cannot believe this is a debut in terms of its scope and ideas, but I can slightly believe it's a debut in terms of its execution.
I understand why some people got completely fed up with this one, but if you're interested in it I think it's worth checking out—if only because it will make you SO EXCITED for whatever Kaliane Bradley does next.

The Ministry of Time was a fantastic read. It’s sort of a spy thriller/time travel workplace comedy with a dash of romance.

Time travel has been discovered and now a secretive new government agency is formed in order to work out the effects of time travel on the human body as well as time/space continuum and such. Enter one of their test subjects, Commander Gore, from the year 1847. Our protagonist is newly hired into the “Ministry” and will act a “bridge” between Commaner Gore and his brave new world of the 21st century. The clash of a liberated modern day working woman and the kind but very Victorian explorer gentlemen living as housemates together is very funny and charming.

This books was playful and cozy, heartwarming and even sad at times. The pacing and world building were great. And the author did a fantastic job with her use of dialogue and language when dealing with characters from different centuries. I devoured it. Highly recommend. Cheers!

I'm really not sure how to rate this one because I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's one of those books that you want to talk about with someone after you finish it.

This isn't a book about time travel. It's a book about adaptation, loneliness, colonialism and self-deception. Time travel is just the excuse.

You have to suspend disbelief at the very beginning, and not about the time travel part. Our unnamed narrator is asked by her agency to be a "bridge" for a person who has been brought forward through time. Her unnamed British government office has come across a means to bring people forward (and perhaps backwards but that hasn't been tested yet that we are aware of) in time and they have picked five people to bring forward. Their philosophy in doing this is similar to that of Kage Baker's enigmatic Dr. Zeus agency which chooses children that are about to die, pulls them from the time stream, and turns them into agents. In this case, the chosen are adults, just before they were slated to perish. Graham Gore, our bridge's assignment, was plucked from a doomed Arctic expedition. Other choices were pulled from the trenches in WWI, taken from a plague house in the 1600's, or a trip to the guillotine.

Why would a civil servant be given this assignment instead of a historian, anthropologist, linguist? To move the plot forward. The bridges are expected to be merciless to their assignments. They are to bring these people into 21st century norms, ethics, language, paradigm. It's temporal colonialism. Our bridge's family is from Cambodia- her parents escaped the killing fields. Our narrator has totally assimilated into British culture- it's what will get her the win, she thinks. She wants her assignment to do the same.

Graham has already been indoctrinated into the importance of preserving the British empire, he just needs to get up to speed about how things work in the here and now. Our narrator lusts endlessly after him. But he's a nineteenth century man who's never even seen a woman in pants before, much less one who thinks she's equal to anyone else (or does she?). There's a romance of sorts brewing but the book jumps around in focus a lot. There's also the possibility of a mole in the Agency, a mysterious murder, a new boss who has no patience for our bridge (I sort of don't blame her), and the possibility that if an out-of-time person can't assimilate, they may actually disappear. Turns out that sometimes these displaced people don't show up on electronic instruments like cameras and CT machines. Not too much is made of this, but it's important. A lot of important things just sort of slide through the narrative and it's difficult to filter through them to what the true point of the book is going to be.

I didn't love our bridge. She didn't seem like a very likable or very observant person and I thought less of Graham for his opinion of her, but I guess he didn't have a lot to compare to. My favorite character was Margaret Kimble, our plague survivor, a queer woman who could really turn a phrase and who leaped into her new century without looking back.

The book jumps into focus at the end. It changes from a meditative character study into a spy thriller. Our bridge didn't seem insightful enough to be able to get through this but her survival instincts did kick in in the end. I don't know if clarity came too late to her.