Cindy (leavemetomybooks)'s Reviews > The Ministry of Time

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 just thank the baby jeebus I didn’t listen to any of the sex scenes on audio bc that would have been horrific.

(( book club January 2025 ))