A review by amusicalbookworm
An Acceptable Time by Madeleine L'Engle

3.0

Okay, so here’s the thing about this author: in each or her Time Quintet books, she has such interesting concepts and beautiful writing. I also love the way she infuses Christianity and sci-fi/fantasy. HOWEVER. What kills these books for me every time is the poor character development. I think out of all 5 of the books in the series, this problem is the MOST evident in An Acceptable Time. Her characters just don’t make decisions that make any sense, and in fact their actions often contradict the things that we do know about them. There were many instances in this book where I had to ask myself, “why should I root for this character at all? Why should I care what happens to this person?” Particularly in the character of Zachary. I understand what L’engle was trying to do with his character, however if you make your character TOO deplorable and pathetic, and don’t show us any redeemable qualities, I think it’s going to be difficult to get your reader to have any empathy for him when you ask us to have it for him. Also, it was hard to get a good picture of who Polly was as our main character, which I now realize is because there is a separate book series featuring Polly, which I haven’t read yet. I’m not sure why this book is included in the Time Quintet, and not promoted as part of the series in which Polly is actually featured (I guess just because it has time travel?) All in all, I didn’t hate this book while reading it, but I found it to be a rather confusing experience overall.