A review by rachelmcg2004
An Acceptable Time by Madeleine L'Engle
1.0
*UPDATE*
Not even for Madeline L'Engle do I give this 3 stars. Some of those plotlines were REALLY bad.
---My Review:
I am a huge fan of Madeline L'Engle's books (they are some of my all-time favorites!)...but I gotta say, this one didn't jive with me. The whole plotline about Zachary (who's IN COLLEGE!!!) creepily stalking Polly to her home with the help of her parents and HER MOTHER...just noooo. That and the fact that her grandparents didn't believe her for the first gigantic chunk of the book (which, hello! Mr. Murray was in SPACE for YEARS being held captive ON A GOLDILOCKS ZONE PLANET!!! If that could happen, then time travel could. That's all i'm saying) really made this book kind of a downer for me. I also really did not like that Calvin and Meg were not there for their daughter. Granted, I have only read the Time Quintet series and not the O'Keefe one, so there might be a valid reason for this distancing, but as a child who felt great heartache over her father's disappearance, I would think that Meg would spend as much time with her kids as possible and not let something like a science career come in the way of that. I don't know. I agree with one of the other comments that stated that it seemed like the characters' personalities were warped in this book, because a man who's been in space does not disbelieve time travel, a woman who ached for a father figure does not abandon her child, and grandparents do NOT reveal the location of their high-school aged teenage daughter to a strange college boy who became infatuated with her. Especially if this college boy did not properly reveal the above infatuation to the girl's parents, so they (shockingly!) allowed this strange boy to know the address of their daughter. I mean, c'mon. It is sad how unrealistic the character dynamics are, and yes, Zachary is dealt with in the end, but in my opinion he should have never been part of the equation.
However, I did like the time travel plotline a little bit because of the beautiful imagery portrayed there. Unfortunately, this too was tainted by unrealistic and kind of sickening character development.
It is my opinion that the characters of a story determine whether a story is pleasant or sickening, and the abuse of characters here was more saddening that maddening. I love Madeline L'Engle, but honestly, I do not like this book.
The three stars was for her. If she was not the author I would give it 1 star.
Not even for Madeline L'Engle do I give this 3 stars. Some of those plotlines were REALLY bad.
---My Review:
I am a huge fan of Madeline L'Engle's books (they are some of my all-time favorites!)...but I gotta say, this one didn't jive with me. The whole plotline about Zachary (who's IN COLLEGE!!!) creepily stalking Polly to her home with the help of her parents and HER MOTHER...just noooo. That and the fact that her grandparents didn't believe her for the first gigantic chunk of the book (which, hello! Mr. Murray was in SPACE for YEARS being held captive ON A GOLDILOCKS ZONE PLANET!!! If that could happen, then time travel could. That's all i'm saying) really made this book kind of a downer for me. I also really did not like that Calvin and Meg were not there for their daughter. Granted, I have only read the Time Quintet series and not the O'Keefe one, so there might be a valid reason for this distancing, but as a child who felt great heartache over her father's disappearance, I would think that Meg would spend as much time with her kids as possible and not let something like a science career come in the way of that. I don't know. I agree with one of the other comments that stated that it seemed like the characters' personalities were warped in this book, because a man who's been in space does not disbelieve time travel, a woman who ached for a father figure does not abandon her child, and grandparents do NOT reveal the location of their high-school aged teenage daughter to a strange college boy who became infatuated with her. Especially if this college boy did not properly reveal the above infatuation to the girl's parents, so they (shockingly!) allowed this strange boy to know the address of their daughter. I mean, c'mon. It is sad how unrealistic the character dynamics are, and yes, Zachary is dealt with in the end, but in my opinion he should have never been part of the equation.
However, I did like the time travel plotline a little bit because of the beautiful imagery portrayed there. Unfortunately, this too was tainted by unrealistic and kind of sickening character development.
It is my opinion that the characters of a story determine whether a story is pleasant or sickening, and the abuse of characters here was more saddening that maddening. I love Madeline L'Engle, but honestly, I do not like this book.
The three stars was for her. If she was not the author I would give it 1 star.